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Comment by amorphid | Hacker News Reader

Did you ever look into whether the orcas' behavior might have been an attempt to knock you off the boat? Your story reminds me of this video of seal-hunting orcas making waves to knock seals into the ice. [1] I assume you weren't dressed as seals :)

[1] https://youtu.be/jhzfVnwx8cA

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I had a Columbia 22, a very light weight boat. The Orca could have destroyed the boat or come over the side of the cockpit. I think it was just messing with me.

At the apex of it’s jumps out of the water it was looking down at me with dark eyes. I really thought it was a nasty creature.

I was in a 22' Excelsior near a gray whale when it decided to breech. Big whale + little boat == feeling of awe + healthy sense of how big the boat is not.

Can whales even see much out of the water? I assumed they had the same blurry vision out of the water that humans have in the water due to the difference refractive index of water and air.

Not all humans have blurry vision underwater [1]. It seems, from the article, that children from that tribe can learn constrict their pupils and accommodate their lenses so as to see much better underwater.

But the quote that followed it is probably much more relevant to this discussion..."Seals and dolphins have a similar adaptation." Since orcas are actually the largest of the dolphin family and not whales, it might apply to them as well.

[1] http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160229-the-sea-nomad-child...

Orca sometimes hunt seals on rocks, so it would make evolutionary sense for the to see well their prey there.

orcas have very good eyesight, including out of the water. they often use a technique called spyhopping where they intentionally poke out of the water to see along the surface of the water for navigation, to see prey further away, or just to inspect their surroundings.

Wow, examining you! Amazing. Thank you for sharing this episode. Hemmingway could write a whole book on just that snippet.

"Then the fish came alive, with his death in him, and rose high out of the water showing all his great length and width and all his power and his beauty. He seemed to hang in the air above the old man in the skiff. Then he fell into the water with a crash that sent spray over the old man and over all of the skiff."

"I obscenity in thy mother's milk," muttered the old man.

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