Posted by Dimitrios on April 02, 2001 at 21:06:28:
In Reply to: Large shark at Catalina posted by Chris on April 02, 2001 at 19:47:52:
From: ", Scott" >
To: "'Freedivelist@freediver.net'"
Subject: Tax collector @ Parsons landing
Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2001 10:31:33 -0700
Hi Guys and Gals,
Just a little note to let all of those over anxious spearo's know of another
GWS sighting at Catalina. I was at the Island yesterday heard lots and lots of croaking but didn't see a single fish:( anyway we were motoring over towards Parsons Landing and there
was a very nice sail boat anchored at the N.W. point of parson's and t e two people on board were waving rather enthuiastically at us and gestureing "come hither" we complied. As I got closer to the sail boat I recognised the male skipper as Ethan Smith a member of the "other club" Neptunes, we exchanged our pleasentries
then he proceeded to tell me of the 15' GWS that had just circled thier boat four times. Appearently his wife saw this thing on the surface around the boat and thought that it was a good idea to go get her husband out of the water just a little further west of thier home/boat,
as she was trying to get the little outboard of thier dingy in the water she said this thing(GWS) came right up to her, she said she could have
touched it! As she motored over to Ethan the GWS followed her! Alls well that ends well both Mr.and Mrs. smith are just fine and richer for thier experince.
On another note:
There are Killer whales between There and the mainland! as we decided to scrub the idea of another dive for reasons previously expressed we were headed home and saw a small group of KW's about 5, as we went a little further we saw that a few more were going to cross our path so I shut
the boat down and drifted right into thier path the three smaller ones under the bow and the big male coming right at the boat. It is amazing the amount of air that these animals can exhale
and inhale in the matter of maybe two seconds! truly amazing!( we got sprayed by blow hole mist blech! fish breath)as we watched the three go
past the bow one of the small ones tail slapped the water as it was set to dive again. It was very loud, I kept looking to see the big male but he didn'tcome right up. I heard some thing like an empty can rolling back on the deck of the boat but there was nothing moving back there, as close as I can figure, it was that the big male either scraped the bottom of my boat with his enormous dorsal or it was rapid sonar that made the noise
because a second later he surfaced right next to the port side. Very, Very exciting. Not one fish on the boat, but a most memorable day. The
trip home was shorter than usual.
Scott
Torrance