It was exactly like I’d seen in the movies. A black fin stuck out of the water, gliding past the boat in front of us. Even though we were a good distance away I knew it was what I’d been hoping to see. As we got closer, a spray of mist jetted into the air and a glistening hump surfaced, slipping back underneath. And then there was quiet – with only a few ripples to betray what lay below. We kept our eyes peeled… this was the moment we’d been waiting for. In a few minutes the captain announced, “Ten o’ clock!” We scrambled to the side of the boat. And from the brilliant Monterey Bay waters, the head of an orca emerged, eye patch and all, followed by another and another and another. Each one surfaced with an exhale from its blowhole: a short, sharp sneeze. I was startled that the whales seemed so… familiar, like they had sprung to life from a TV screen. Slick, as though they were made of plastic and rubber, like animatronic models. But the agility and power with which they moved confirmed that these creatures were indeed very real: diving and surfacing, paying little regard to their human audience.

I’d always dreamed of seeing whales in the wild; there was a magic I associated with it. I’d been hugely influenced by the movie Free Willy and I was well into my twenties when I discovered (to my utter dismay) that the glorious jump scene over the rocks was not real. Of course it wasn’t. This has been a constant problem for most of my life – losing my naivety too late and grieving that things weren’t what I thought they were. Always discovering truths and wishing I didn’t. They say you can never recover lost innocence.

I spent a big chunk of my teenage years researching the habits of cetaceans on my dial-up connection, with the same enthusiasm that I devoured news about my then crush: Nick Carter from the Backstreet Boys. There were clear long-term goals with both interests: I would marry Nick and I would become a marine biologist. The former crush disappeared when I discovered “real life” possibilities and the latter is a career choice I still wistfully dream about.

The six of us – friends from university – had made it just in time for the tour, on what was a very rainy April morning. Driving in the torrential downpour, we’d called to check if the trip was still on, only to be told that whales didn’t worry about rainy days. There were about thirty five of us on the boat. When we set out, the sky and sea merged together in a haze of rain-soaked grey. Californian sea lions lay on the rocks, looking like piles of gunny bags ready to slip into the ocean. Sea otters floated on their backs in the water, with babies on their bellies – GIFs come to life. The first cetaceans to break the surface were a pod of Risso’s dolphins, and I whooped with joy. My day was already made, and I had no idea what was still to come.

A rainy morning in Monterey Bay 

A pod of Risso’s dolphins swimming close to the shore!

We picked up speed, leaving behind solid ground and the rules that land imposes. Out in the ocean, the elements seemed to have no respect for how things were supposed to be, and that felt liberating, as the boat rode the swells. My partner and I stood in our raincoats, holding on to the railing tightly as the wind whooshed around us and occasionally sent a spray of seawater up to our faces. We exchanged life updates with our friends, while pointing out a brown pelican here, a sea lion there. The skies gradually cleared up, bringing out a dazzling Californian sun. Light sparkled on the water.

Underneath this impenetrable blue, the sea floor dropped away like a cliff, reaching a depth of up to 3,600 metres, “like two grand canyons stacked on top of each other”, said Maddy, one of the naturalists in the crew. This depth is one of the reasons that bring an abundance of marine life to these waters – including transient killer whales.

We were over an hour into the four-hour tour when we first spotted that black fin. This was Aurora’s pod. Named after its matriarch, it consisted of her two adult daughters and their two calves, and Aurora’s youngest calf. Alongside the pod swam Aurora’s brother Jimmy, who was considerably larger and with different markings. Jimmy was slower and graceful, his large body taking time to complete the forward roll of head, body, tail. The smallest orcas looked almost comical as they dived, like they needed a bit more body to follow. They were, dare I say, very cute, and it was hard to believe they’d have any sort of killer instinct.

But even as we looked on, the pod got to work. We caught a glimpse of a sea lion’s head. Around it, the whales dipped in and out, in and out. Then they were gone, and all was quiet for a few minutes, before they resurfaced. There was no sign of the sea lion. The crew thought it was likely they got it. If they did, it was quick and brutal, and there was no pool of blood or visible violence, just a silent disappearance. One down.

We watched the younger ones sneak up on a group of unsuspecting black-and-white birds bobbing on the water (they got away at the last minute). This was possibly curiosity or ‘play’, but it could also be the adults teaching the calves how to stalk prey, the crew said. These common murres were perfect targets for the babies to practise hunting, allowing them to chase something quick-moving both above and below the water.

I learned that transient killer whales in this area feed on the calves of other whales. “Killer whales sneak up on you,” explained Maddy. “They push gray whales into deeper water. Gray whales need air; killer whales flip them over so their blowholes are under water.” I winced, wondering if that was the reason we weren’t seeing any grays around that day. These inflated rubber creatures were starting to look more and more menacing.

Humpbacks put up a good fight though, continued Maddy. They frequently intervene in orca attacks on other mammals (which was thought to be a kind of altruism until recently). I felt my loyalties changing suddenly: I loved the idea of humpbacks as do-gooders, protecting their friends from these merciless predators. But scientists now think that humpbacks may fight orcas to protect their own young, and in the process, save other lives.

Aurora’s pod 

You can hear the excitement! (The orcas aren’t as close as they look in this video.)

The orcas seemed to be in a playful mood, and they got closer, prompting excited exclamations from onlookers. For a second I felt like an intruder, gawking at these animals in their home, one that was largely inaccessible to us. They slid under the boats, coming out on the other side, then went under again. This time, they didn’t reappear. There were a few tense moments on the boat as we all wondered where they’d gone. Anxiety started to prickle my skin: I definitely didn’t want to end up in the water with them. (Even though as a child I thought otherwise. I had a deep fear of sharks after watching the movie Jaws, but I was convinced Willy would always turn up to rescue me. That I was miles away from any water body was a different matter.) “If they don’t get back up in fifteen minutes, it’s likely that they’re actively hunting,” Maddy said.

After a few minutes, we spotted the pod much further away from us, swimming in sync, covering serious distance. The show was over. We started to head back towards the shore in the opposite direction. I watched until the arcs of their backs became tiny specks and then merged into the waves.

I loved that the crew was genuinely enthusiastic about the sighting, even though they’d been seeing the pod for a couple of weeks this spring. I asked Kalea, the other naturalist on board, if there was any marine animal she particularly wanted to see. “Basking sharks in your part of the world,” she said, smiling. “I might do a stint in the UK next year and I’m crossing my fingers for it!” I was surprised: here I was, having flown ten hours to see Monterey’s magic, and Kalea, who routinely saw orcas and blue whales, wanted to see something in my backyard. Basking sharks were an interesting contrast: they were harmless, in spite of their enormous, scary-looking mouths – as opposed to the orcas, with their deceptively cartoonish appearance but sharp teeth, built to kill.

I scanned the horizon through my binoculars, greedy with the hope of spotting something else. Far away, I thought I saw something big and grey emerge and drop back into the water. Could it be a humpback? I had no way to know for sure. But I could choose to keep that story, even if only as a way to preserve my innocence.

I had just accomplished one of my life’s biggest, wildest dreams – one that had seemed so out of reach to a child growing up in an urban, landlocked part of India, far away from orcas and oceans. It had come true, thanks to the generosity of our friends and sheer luck. I’d expected to feel slightly disappointed after, now that the fantasy had dissolved into reality.

But I was even more awed and intrigued. I knew I had only caught a glimpse of what the ocean had to offer. Watching these creatures exposed how little we knew: generations were unfolding beneath us, stories that humans might never witness (maybe for the better). I’d expected to be blown away by the size of killer whales, but what surprised me was the scale of the body that contained them – one that’s home to some of the largest and smallest creatures on earth.

I hoped that the youngest calves of this pod would grow up to be wild and free, leaping with abandon – like a scene straight out of a movie. But maybe I didn’t need to witness it to verify it. I could just choose to believe.

Sunnier, bluer waters. I tried not to imagine I saw fins sticking out of everywhere as we made our way back to the shore.

We booked via Discovery Whale Watch – highly recommend! 
Read more about the California Killer Whale Project.