Eye To Eye: A Chance Encounter With Orca

June-July 1999

This is an article from WaveLength Magazine, available in print in North America and globally on the web

by Chrystal Meiman

We put in at Telegraph Cove on a hot day.

Dawne and I were in the double Nimbus, and Jake, Rod and Robert in single kayaks. The bright blue sky was cloudless and there was little wind. As we threaded our way through log booms, I noticed the kayak bow of He Who Shall Be Nameless (HWSBN) drooping more and more under the swells. By the middle of Johnstone Strait, wavelets were breaking over the deck and there was a distinct roll to the boat. After a hurried consultation, we turned back to the beach. We offered to tow him, but HWSBN refused. The deck drooped further and further underwater until HWSBN had to paddle with teeny sweeps in order not to roll his boat. He landed on one of the few available beaches and removed everything from the two hatches, which were full of water. HWSBN had just hand built this kayak and had test driven it on Shawnigan Lake with no problems. Ocean waves were different. After a few experiments, HWSBN found the two curved hatch covers were not curved enough to fit watertight. Duct tape to the rescue and away we went.

As we crossed the Strait, Dawne and I found the men slowly pulling away from us. After half an hour, Dawne noticed that a large fir on the nearest island was actually gaining on us as we fought the incoming tide. I blew my rescue whistle to indicate we were putting ashore. Good thing you can't overturn a double I thought, (not true), because it was about half an hour before anyone noticed we were missing.

We made camp and started a pit fire under a tarp (because of the cold). During our time in the Strait, it rained every day, sometimes all day. In our wet weather gear, kayaking in the rain was pleasantly cool and very beautiful. Islets and water took on the greyed tones of a Japanese painting. But my on-shore clothing was insufficient and I became wet and then hypothermic one night. I thought about crawling into someone else's sleeping bag, but fell asleep still shivering.

Robert was well outfitted for rain, despite being from San Diego. He had joined our group at the last moment. Dawne and I met him while walking through the Telegraph Cove parking lot. We saw a young black man methodically stowing high tech equipment and freeze-dried meals in his kayak. He had read about Johnstone Strait, and was here to try ocean kayaking. Robert had never been on the ocean because of a spate of shark attacks in the San Diego area. Instead he had paddled the nearby lakes. When we pointed out it was a bit foolish to go alone into unknown waters without knowledge of tides and winds, he gave us a puppy dog smile until we invited him to join us.

Later in camp, Robert proudly showed off his electronic equipment and casually mentioned he worked for the FBI as an equipment man.

My heart raced. Instant paranoia. I just knew he was taping all our (pretty ordinary) conversations.

Robert told us his specialty was "domestic terrorists." I told him I was a terrorist, had been arrested and served time in jail (during the Clayoquot times). Furthermore I considered myself a domestic terrorist, because I always wore a dress, high heels, and an apron when being arrested (ok, no apron). Robert was not amused.

Robert and my 19 year old son, Jake, shared an interest in Rap music. They loudly played Boogie Down Productions and A Tribe Called Quest. That night I gazed at the moonlit sea, immersing myself in the natural world. In the Strait, a cruise ship as big as the Titanic and lit like a small city was suddenly there and just as suddenly, gone.

The next day the guys wanted an intense day of paddling. Dawne and I decided to paddle to a remote fishing camp where we sunned on the deck and ate home-made pie h la mode. Ah! the spartan life of camping. At night, we made trumpets from bull kelp and bellowed the song, Blue Moon, at a full moon, the second moon of August.

The following day, we paddled to another island, followed in the bull kelp by a pair of curious seals with huge brown eyes, resembling intelligent aliens. At dusk there was no current or wind. We paused in an inlet surrounded by spruce trees above gray limestone cliffs. The sun's rays slanted golden onto a sea so clear that the reflection of the spruce was colored even more intensely than the overhanging trees which were darkened by the coming evening. The spruce reflections seemed to direct us to a magical world under the sea. We paddled home in the fragrant dark, feeling contented.

During several wonderful paddling days, we had seen eagles fishing and curious seals, but whale spouts only twice and at a great distance. The last day we paddled the northeast side of the Strait looking for whales. About three miles away we saw several spouts south of us in the Strait. We knew we could not paddle across in time to intercept them. There was some morose grumbling. But the whales came closer-three spouts! Then they altered position into the middle of the Strait. Dawne began a complex drumming on the kayak and I sent out my most powerful mental shout, hoping to attract them. A whale-watching boat motored across the Strait and positioned themselves North of us. Suddenly the spouts were on our side of the Strait and the Orcas were swimming directly towards us. One young female flopped up on the shore rocks and rubbed her belly. Two females came directly in front of me diving and resurfacing.

A chance encounter with Orca is an experience like no other. Photo by Alexandra Morton

I maneuvered my boat to try to photograph them after they passed us. I heard my son say, "Thanks, Mom," as I cut off his view and then heard his gasp as a large male appeared on his starboard bow. The 6 foot dorsal fin was only about four feet away when the whale dove directly under him, not even grazing the kayak's bottom. Jake later said he felt so small and the whales seemed so fast, immense, and powerful.

Two more whales swam by. At the top of her arc, a female looked into my eyes. For a second, we were in direct communication. I felt an ecstasy like a mystical religious experience. The whale and I were one. She was from another world, one I could only ever partially share. What does she hear and smell in her world? How is it like or unlike my world?

Then we saw the last two whales: a female and her calf surfacing and diving in absolute communion. The whales dove under us and resurfaced. As we sat looking down at the Orcas from above, I noticed the black markings disappeared, leaving white pieces, like parts of a puzzle. The pod turned and came back, examining us one more time. For the third time, they swam past, but this time a large female surfaced between us and the whale-watching vessel, her entire body visible on the surface. She probably weighed eight tons and was too close and too big for a photograph. People were running back and forth on the whale watching boat taking videos of her. She checked us out for a long 90 seconds and I became afraid of this un-Orca behaviour. Then she dove, the pod turned and in a tight group went fast up the Strait.

We were speechless, then suddenly everyone was talking at once.

We broke camp the next day, but I will never forget this trip. Species to species, eye to eye, we acknowledged each other as equals without aggression, curiosity on both sides. This intensely spiritual experience will be with me forever.

Chrystal has been kayaking for seven years and enjoys seeking out the treasures of the BC coast.©