Re: orca's eating habits

[Ray McAllister <mcallist@gate.net>]

        Try this on. I wrote it as part of a story of my trip to the 
        Aleutians in 1948.

         We got in and started the outboard.  Spike did not like
         waves and, protected or not there were 3 foot waves in the bay.
         Our 12 foot dinghy was tossed pretty badly.  He lay down in the
         bottom and left the driving to me.

              I had to go straight into the waves to avoid being swamped
         and about 1/3 of the way across a pod of whales started jumping
         out of the water, wildly!  As we got closer we could see killer
         whales cutting in and out, with the huge dorsal fins sticking up
         three or four feet.  The water got vivid purple with whale blood
         as we got closer.  Remember that we could not turn back or angle
         across the waves for fear of swamping and the water was about
         45 degrees or so. It takes a helluva lot of blood to turn the
         seawater reddish purple and we were right in the middle of the
         action. All I could think of was that one of the frightened
         whales might land on us. When we got out of the whales we ran the
         dinghy hard aground on the cobble beach alongside the runway and
         pulled it up and left it. We hiked back to the base. It would
         have been much easier to motor around to the dock but neither
         Spike nor Ray wanted anymore to do with that embayment!

Ray McAllister, Prof (Emeritus) Ocean Eng., FAU, Boca Raton, FL 33064
Diving Dinosaur, Geologist/Oceanographer/Ocean Engineer, 44 years SCUBA
mcallist@gate.net (954) 426-0808, Author Diving Locations, Boynton/Dania