Not many orca encounters leave us speechless, but today was one of those days!

We left the dock with our friends at Maya's Legacy Whale Watching without any whale reports in the area, but you never know what you'll find unless you go out and look. After a couple hours of searching, we found the T18s heading north in the the southern Gulf Islands. Suddenly, they made an abrupt course change and started traveling at speed. Shortly after saying, "They're acting like they're going to meet up with somebody" we spotted more dorsal fins ahead.

The T18s came in to join the T30Bs and T117Bs who were in active pursuit of a Steller sea lion. It was incredible to watch the tactics on both sides, with the whales circling wide and taking turns coming in to lunge at and ram the sea lion, and the sea lion spending a lot of time upside down to look for the next attack.

Before we left, the sea lion attempted to take refuge behind the boat. The whales fell back, and as we tried to depart the area, the sea lion was keeping pace right alongside us; what was perhaps most amazing was that he showed no apparent injuries at that point despite the beating he had been taking!

The action was incredible and the emotions were running high all the way around. Jason will have an epic video of this encounter to share in the week ahead, but for now here are a few still images of one of our most memorable Bigg's encounters of all time.

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