Call Me Ishmael

Because I chased whales all day. In Vancouver.

We spent the morning with this local pod of killer whales, known as orcas (also the name of the lil old lady bun bun we used to have, do you remember her?). They were known as the T101 group: one small female and three enormous males that all travel around these waters together.

At one point G leaned over and said, "How much of our lives have we spent waiting on animals?"

Um, a lot.

But this was so worth it! These whales don't migrate; they live in this area and simply swim around looking for food. So, once we found them we were able to just slow down and hang out with them. They surface and breathe "regularly"a few times in a row before diving deep for about 10 minutes or so before they resurface. When they come up for air, you are able to see more than their dorsal fin; you can see pretty much their whole middle section.

They only jump and splash around if they are being social (like, greeting another pod) or if they are celebrating a kill. Neither of which we saw today, but it was so nice to enjoy the Pacific Northwest coastline for a few hours and bond with our aquatic cousins.

Orcas, like our buds the elephants, are matriarchal. Although the females are smaller, they lead the pod and make all the big decisions, so to speak. Their gestation period - this is for all you moms out there - is seventeen months. !! The baby feeds only on mother's milk for the first year of its life, and for the second year it mainly drinks milk but supplements a bit with food. Babies stay in the pod with mom until they are in their teens, or longer: boys, too. Only adult males really go off on their own.

Unlike elephants, though, killer whales only hang out in groups of three or four. That's the ideal size of a group to hunt the type of prey that they do, which consists of seals, porpoises, and even other whales.

Not a bad way to celebrate our anniversary. I think the rest of the country (world?) was watching the royal wedding, but we didn't because those kids just copied our big day anyways. :) We celebrated our own big day, our own big way. And we had a whale of a time! :)