Orca Escort

Sony A77II
Sony 70-400G-II @ 100mm
ISO 800, 1/500 @ f5.6
Chrissy and I cruised Alaska on a small boat in the late summer of 2017. We actually left Houston for Alaska two days before Hurricane Harvey struck the city. We spent the first ten days of the trip at Seward, Denali and Wrangell St Elias before flying to Juneau to catch our boat. One other couple on the boat was from Houston but they had left in the aftermath of the storm and had had considerable difficulty flying out of Texas. They did arrive in Juneau just in time but their luggage was lost and they had to depart with just the clothes on their backs and what they had brought in carry ons. Their luggage did arrive two days later and our cruise operator made arrangements for the Safari Explorer (our sister ship pictured here) which departed Juneau a couple days after us to rendezvous with us and deliver the lost luggage. During the meet we were treated to the presence of a couple of orcas who stayed with us for over an hour. One of the huge advantages of being on a small ship is that they are not constrained to a prescribed course path like the big ships and opportunities like this can be exploited. Just one of many wonderful memories from that trip. All comments welcome. >=))>

Bill, this is a neat catch (and fine back story) with the Orcas, the boat and the gull making a nice diagonal. Even without the back story, this is view tells a fine story of wildlife viewing.

Very nice, Bill. I like the position of the orcas in the frame and the way the ridge line in the hills works with the line of the orcas, boat and gull.