Wakeboarders enjoy "miraculous encounter" with orcas in North Vancouver (VIDEOS)
What began as an “average” day wakeboarding in North Vancouver near Deep Cove turned out to be anything but for 22-year-old Vancouver resident Josh Goodman.
Goodman told Daily Hive he and his friends were on the water for a wakeboard session near the northern tip of Crocker Island last Saturday, and were getting to the end of their day when an unexpected encounter took place.
“We noticed a small cluster of boats,” said Goodman. “Initially we thought they were a group of fishers trying to catch the far end of the pink salmon run.”
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Goodman said he made his way closer to the boats to see if they’d had any luck, “but to my surprise they did not have any rods in the water.”
Goodman said this puzzled him and his group for a moment, but they ultimately kept going up the Indian Arm.
Moments after leaving the group of boats, “we noticed orcas breaching about 200 metres in the distance,” he said. “As soon as I noticed I pulled out my camera, turned off the boat and recorded what I could.”
Goodman said the orcas “started jumping high out of the water and it was a miraculous sight.”
Not too long after this, he said, “the whales made their way over to my boat and curiously inspected the hull.” At that moment, “another adult orca with a harbour seal carcass floated underneath us nomming away at its remains.”
Goodman said being able to see orcas in their natural habitat like this was a “rewarding” experience.
“I have never experienced this kind of interaction in the wild but I have seen them once in captivity,” he said. “I vowed to never attend again nor support a company that robs them of their natural life.”
Seeing orcas in the Indian Arm like this was “a rare sight, and some could say once in a lifetime,” he added.
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