Our First Orca Encounter on Yahara

(Part 1 of our 4th of July 2022 adventure)

This year, on the 4th of July, we were invited to raft up to our friend’s boat, SV Intention.

The plan was to watch an epic, private fireworks show at an anchorage near our marina.  

What a great idea!  Over the last two years, we’ve come to know our marina slip neighbors, Bob and Jenni, and we’ve talked about a little raft-up adventure for a while. 

…What a perfect opportunity! 

Friday evening, as we were stocking up on grillables, snacks galore, and plenty of beer, Bob texted us. 

“There’s a pod of orcas traveling south into Budd Inlet.” 

What!?  Is he sure it’s orcas??  They’re not usually this far south. 

Ok. Well, let’s hustle. Maybe timing will work out, and we’ll see them as we travel north out of Budd Inlet.

We hustled out of the grocery store, quickly got the boat ready to be underway, and headed out for our fun weekend! 

We were maybe 10 minutes underway.

“Brian, there!  There it is!!!” 

Yep. An orca.  So far down in Budd Inlet. WOW!!!!

“Bob said there was a pod?… we gotta keep looking!”

We slowed down the already slow engine.  “This one is getting so close!”  

“Look!” “Wow!!”

Out of this world! Completely Amazing!

In these moments, being in its presence, we felt SO fortunate!

This year has been so packed with house remodel projects that we’ve had very little time to actually take Yahara out on the water.

But here we are.

In THAT moment, we WERE out there.

And we get to be in the presence of orcas at the same time?!?!

Mind Blown.
Orcas are magnificent creatures to observe and be near.

And sure enough, after a bit, we spotted more. We saw 5 in total.


Over and over, I kept thinking to myself… Can you IMAGINE, Rachel?

What it would be like to own a house on the water like that? AND have orcas swim literally past your back door??

And now that I’m writing this… I’m realizing…

That IS exactly what we already have.

Except for our ‘house’ was swimming WITH the orcas.

Holy Schmoly.

Talk about a giant slap of gratitude to the heart. We already HAVE this thing you asked yourself to imagine what it must be like to have.

I have the chills. Goose pimples on my arms, right now.

Perhaps my favorite part of this orca encounter was getting to hear them breathe.

My…. God.

They were close enough to hear the alternating, big, deep, pufffffffff puffffffff sounds of their breath.

……puffffffff ……puffffffff …..puffffffff


I will never forget that.

And then one jumped.

“Rachel!! Did you get that one, jumping!?!?!?!”

Baaahahahaha!! Nope.

OF COURSE, an orca jumped right as I was distracted by this VERY common bird…. HAHA!

Thanks, seagull.

Orcas have carried several meanings and symbolisms throughout time.

In some Native cultures, the Orca is said to protect those who travel away from home and to lead them back when the time comes.

We are getting SO close. So close to moving onto our floating home full-time.
And here’s our sign from the universe (if we want to receive it) that we’re going to be ok.

Everything we do. It’s allllll going to be ok.

We can’t be afraid of saying goodbye. We’ll be led back when the time comes.

The universe has our back out there.

We just gotta get out there.

We said ‘See ya later’ to the orca pod as we approached our anchorage for the night at Boston Harbor. And we found our friends, Bob and Jenni on Intention. (The sailboat on the very left.)

We rafted up and settled in.

We grilled some brats for dinner, opened a beer, and enjoyed a beautiful sunset.

Little did we know that later that night we’d wake up to our most…. sporty? exciting? lesson-filled? night yet.

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