Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Black fish

I'm still firm in my quest to sail at least once every month, so last Sunday I headed to Lowman for a Puget Sound session. The wind was in the low teens from the South, so I thought I would try to make it across the sound to Blake Island and back (4 miles each way). As I was going to launch, one of the locals told me: you should have been here yesterday, the Orcas were here, quite a spectacle.
Pods of Orcas travel up and down the Puget sound, right in my backyard and playground, or should I say their backyard and feeding ground? I know, Orcas are very smart mammals, top predators that feed on only with the fattest Chinook salmon, but do I want to become the scientific anomaly? Do I want people to say: we don't know what happened, he was out there shedding and the Orcas just ate him. Hell no.
This is their house, they have right of way, and so I retreated to Newcastle and sailed in fresh water.
As I was driving away I could still feel the fear, that primal sense that one has when one is about to become someone else's lunch, that feeling that tells you: get the f*** out of there.

Puget Sound Orca, from the Seattle Aquarium website