Tag: Boat

Tense moments for family as orca pushes and spins boat

A close orca encounter Tuesday in Puget Sound, Wash., included several anxious moments for a family whose boat was shoved and spun by the mammal.

A close orca encounter Tuesday in Puget Sound, Wash., included several anxious moments for a family whose boat was shoved and spun by the mammal.

“Why is it doing this?” Deb Syna, one of the boaters, asks in the accompanying footage.

The footage, captured by Syna and her 16-year-old daughter, Nina, begins with the male transient orca alongside their 17-foot boat. Syna’s husband, Dirk Morgan, also was aboard.

The boat was idle during the orca’s visit.

After Syna’s “Hi, how are you?” greeting the mammal begins to gently nudge and shove the vessel. “It’s pushing our boat!” Syna exclaims, and later adds, “Why is he spinning us?”

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(The second clip shows the orca swiftly pushing the boat.)

The family remained calm throughout the encounter, and at no time did the orca appear aggressive. But Syna was concerned enough to suggest to the killer whale, “Keep going. Go on,” and advise Nina to grab a safety railing.

Syna told the Orca Network, which shared both videos: “He played with the boat for about 10 minutes, going under and rocking, then pushing and then spinning us before he swam off.”

She explained to Go Skagit: “We went around a couple of times.”

Morgan, smartly, did not start the engine because that could have injured the mammal.

So why did the orca, a 17-year-old male cataloged as T65A2, behave in this manner?

The Orca Network’s Facebook posts inspired dozens of theories, while the Washington-based nonprofit offered what it considered the most plausible explanations:

“Some of the many possibilities for his behavior: trying to flush out prey, curiosity, aggression, play, enrichment, communication, and/or a behavior/communication in orca language that we humans don’t know or may never truly understand.”

Ralph Downs, a Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife officer, told Go Skagit: “It’s a rare thing, but every now and then they decide to get a little frisky. Sometimes the whales just decide to check us out and use us as toys.”

Watch: Man knocked overboard by lunge-feeding whale

A passenger aboard a whale-watching boat in South Africa was knocked overboard Sunday when a Bryde’s whale bumped the vessel while lunge-feeding on sardines.

A passenger aboard a whale-watching boat in South Africa was knocked overboard Sunday when a Bryde’s whale bumped the vessel while feeding on sardines.

The man, who was thrown a life vest and helped back onto the boat, was not injured.

A spokeswoman for Raggy Charters in Port Elizabeth told For The Win Outdoors that the whale also seemed to be OK and “continued feeding” after the incident.



The accompanying footage begins with dolphins feeding during early stages of the seasonal sardine run, a mass migration that attracts voracious predators large and small.

Viewers can hear the whale’s bump at 1:17. Moments later the whale erupts at the surface in a lunge-feeding display just inches from the boat, causing the man to fall overboard.

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“Dad! Dad?” a woman cries to her father, who begins swimming toward the boat. “Are you OK, dad?” A few second’s later, more calmly: “Dad’s overboard.”

The man received assistance from another vessel’s crew but was ultimately reunited with his daughter and fellow passengers.

Raggy Charters began its Facebook post with the title: “Sardine Run starts with a Bang.”

The description, written by naturalist Lloyd Edwards, begins:

“I guess it is something that we always fear and try our level best to avoid during the last 23 years. When a whale hits a whale-watching boat, there can always be damage. This time we were extremely lucky.”

The vessel was traveling parallel to feeding dolphins when the schooled-up sardines and dolphins suddenly veered in front of the boat.

“We could see them eating sardines that were being chased under the boat,” Edwards continued. “We immediately put the outboards into neutral but left them running. This allows whales to still be able to hear us.”

At this moment the collision occurred, followed by the breaching Bryde’s whale, and the rescue effort.

Edwards recalled: “I was filming from the platform on top of the cabin when all of a sudden it felt like we had been hit by another boat. Then the next minute this Bryde’s whale came breaching out of the water above my eye level. I have never seen a lunge feed so high out of the water!”

Port Elizabeth is in South Africa’s Eastern Cape Province. The sardine run along the country’s eastern shore is expected to last several weeks.