Killer Whales

by Jim Mccormack
(Tempe,AZ)

heading across the border at Tijuana me and a couple headed down to Rosarita and stopped to pick up a hungover friend staying at the old hotel. We picked him up and headed down to k 52 and sat.

The swell was 3to 4 and the tide was low but coming in. We made our hungover friend a sandwich and a five or six dolphins swam north in the surfline followed closely by young California gray whale about about 20 ft. long. I'd seen gray whales before and figured it must have been a lost calf separated from its mother.

As it swam in front of us it bellied on the bottom and violently slapped its flukes on the water to move itself of the bottom. It was quite something to see. We moved north to Campo Lopez and sat on the bluff parking next to some guy half out of his sleeping bag asleep/ passed out and surrounded by a dozen or so empty corona bottles. The sun hadn't hit the beach yet and slight offshore breeze was blowing. Siting for ten minutes we noticed the dolphins heading up the coast.

There were two guys that had just paddled out directly in front of us as the dolphins approached, but where was the whale We couldn't see it the dolphins passed around the two surfers who about 6 ft. apart talking. Then suddenly we saw it. The whale came into view and bellied on the bottom and lifting its fluke up caught the first on the upswing of its tail and lifted him and board clear out of the water and flung them about 8 ft. as his friend watched in amazement.Now the whale had passed under the other surfer and bellied out on the the bottom again and raised it's tail out of the about three ft. out of the water to clear it's belly and just missed killing the next surfer by two ft. with its 8 ft. tail as it came down on the water.

True story ask rob roman, Tom Stark,Mickey Savoie and yours truly,Jim mccormorant.