A group of paddlers off La Paz, Mexico, recently found themselves surrounded by orcas as the mammals feasted on schooling mobula rays.
“The whole thing was absolutely powerful, magical, and oh so lucky,” Sergio Garcia, owner of Baja SUP, told For The Win Outdoors. “We felt grateful to have been there at exactly the right moment and place to share that experience.”
Garcia, 39, on Thursday provided a summary of the late January encounter involving at least five Eastern Tropical Pacific killer whales, or orcas.
He was on SUP board and two others, Terri Lynn and Rene Potvin, were on kayaks. Lynn and Potvin had been freediving and spearfishing from their kayaks before the orca sighting off Playa El Coyote in the Sea of Cortez, just north of La Paz.
The encounter began after Garcia saw a large splash behind Lynn as the group prepared to paddle back to the beach.
“Assuming that this encounter was going to last only a few moments as the orcas cruised by, Sergio and Terri Lynn paddled quickly to follow behind the orcas and soak up every glimpse,” the summary reads. “Then, to their surprise, they realised that the pod wasn’t actually leaving! They were corralling a group of mobula rays – it was a feeding frenzy!”
Garcia said the paddlers tried to keep a responsible distance but that became impossible as the mobula rays rushed toward the paddlers while trying to escape the orcas, bringing the orcas to the paddlers.
“The orcas used bubble curtains and swam tight circles to keep the rays together and at the surface, and picked one off every once in a while,” the summary reads. “Rene saw a half-bitten ray floating by shortly after the feeding ended.
“The whales fed for about 10 minutes, then, apparently satiated, let the remaining rays go and turned their full attention to us.”
The orcas made repeated passes in what seemed expressions of curiosity, and remained with the paddlers for another 10 minutes before disappearing to the south.
One of the females in the pod, identifiable by a deep notch at the base of her dorsal fin, has been spotted elsewhere in Mexico and was once documented preying on a sunfish off the Mexican state of Michoacan.
Eastern Tropical Pacific killer whales are encountered sporadically and have been spotted as far north as Southern California.