B.C. father and son have seen wildlife before. But this orca encounter was ‘incredible’
An amazing close encounter with a pod of orcas was caught on camera recently.
Lionel Jensen and his dad Randy recently completed the Race to Alaska, an annual race from Port Townsend, Wash., to Ketchikan, Alaska. It’s a sailing race using only wind power, no engines allowed.
But they said this recent encounter on Monday at the Sewell’s Marina Docks in Horseshoe Bay blew them away.
“It was incredible,” Lionel told Global News.
“At one point, one of the whales dove underneath me. I was standing on a floating structure, and so I could look down the blowhole of the whale as it went underneath me. And they were swimming alongside the breakwater so we could jog along beside the whales.”
The orcas were so close to the dock that the group could see their markings.
Lionel Jensen
Dad Randy said he has had close encounters with wildlife before, but nothing like this.
“It’s just beyond belief,” he said. “I felt like an orca tamer. Like I was directing them. They were right at my feet.”
A whale expert identified one of the orcas as T49A from the group of Bigg’s Killer Whales.
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“So she would be the matriarch, she is the mom that is leading the group,” Andrew Trites with the UBC Marine Mammal Research Centre told Global News.
He said the group was likely hunting for harbour seals, which are abundant along the coast.
“It is literally the 7-Eleven or the Superstore for killer whales,” he said.
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