Bigg's Marathon: All-Day Trip on 9/24/23

On Sunday, September 24, 2023 we headed out with our friends from the After the Breach podcast aboard J1 with Maya's Legacy Whale-Watching to see what we could find on an all-day trip from Friday Harbor. The day turned into a Bigg's killer whale marathon as we didn't even have to travel that far, but by zig-zagging the San Juan Islands over the course of 7 hours we found 4 different groups of Bigg's totaling 32 individual whales. Here's Jason's video highlight movie of our incredible day.

[@nancyholohan5363]

Healthy upright fins in their own habitat.❤ #EmptyTheTanks

[@MermaidMusings7]

Lovely! Who are the males with the large dorsal fins? Are those Stanley and/or Galiano?

[@OrcaBehaviorInstitute]

The biggest males in this video are T137A Jack and T49A1 Noah

[@MermaidMusings7]

@@OrcaBehaviorInstitute There are few things on earth as impressive as seeing a bull orca in its natural habitat. I wish I had your job!

[@vcie515]

Wonderful!
But why adding such an unnecessary music to the video?
I would very much prefer hearing them breathe and flapping the water with their tales...

[@OrcaBehaviorInstitute]

Thanks for the comment!
I would also prefer to capture natural sounds of the whales, but the reality is that it is very rare that there isn’t obstructive sounds from either the wind, people talking, camera shutters from other photographers or the whales just being too distant to even capture their blows. Music is of course a subjective thing and it will never be to everyone’s liking, but I try and carefully select music that I think captures the moment the way I see it from my perspective.

[@vcie515]

@@OrcaBehaviorInstitute
Ok, that's understandable.
Thank you for replying and explaining!
You are very lucky to see them so often, and I'm very grateful that you share these moments when you are following and filming the pods. It's very beautiful. Thanks!