Rachel Haight admits that her passion for orca whales borders on obsession.
Even her 6-year-old daughter Lily will shake her head at the suggestion of another car trip to catch a whale sighting.
“My favorite story with whales is about the whales under Deception Pass months ago,” Haight said. “It’s really rare. No one ever sees this.”
So she told her daughter about the report and asked if she wanted to hurry and go see the rare orca sighting.
“Her reply was, ‘It’s just whales under a bridge.’ ”
Haight, who lives in Oak Harbor, is a sighting volunteer with the Langley-based Orca Network who’s been very busy lately.
Since Aug. 3, transient orca sightings in Puget Sound around Whidbey Island have been reported to the network almost every day, said Alisa Lemire Brooks, the network’s Northwest sighting coordinator.
Their frequency in the area is likely due to the abundance of seal pups in the water this time of year, Lemire Brooks said.
Transient orcas are marine mammal eaters that tend to peak in appearances around Whidbey during the months of April and August, said Susan Berta, co-founder of the Orca Network along with her husband, Howard Garrett.
The endangered southern resident orcas eat salmon and tend to be seen near Whidbey from October through January, particularly in Admiralty Inlet.
“We used to not get transients this often,” Berta said. “There’s a scientific paper in the works (claiming that) we’re getting more transients. The sea lion population has exploded and there’s just a lot of food down here.”
A pod of about 12 transients frolicking about a quarter-mile from the Clinton ferry dock delayed the departure of the Kittitas ferry bound for Mukilteo Aug. 6.
On Thursday, the same ferry had to stop mid-channel for a few minutes to allow a pod of at least six orcas pass.
Lemire Brooks was aboard that ferry.
What’s intrigued those with the Orca Network is the unusual behavior of one particular juvenile orca that is hanging out by itself and frequently traveling close to shore, trailing its pod.
It was seen in the shallows of Penn Cove near the mussel rafts owned by Penn Cove Shellfish Wednesday night and was spotted by Fox Spit at the entrance of Holmes Harbor on another occasion.
Haight was there to capture both sightings on her camera.
Haight, 26, said she’s dreamed about moving to the Puget Sound area to study orcas ever since a visit to Anacortes 12 years ago.
“I said, ‘One day I’m going to move up here,’” she said.
That day came in 2012 when her husband Joshua agreed to move from Omaha, Neb., to Oak Harbor.
His job involves frequent travel, so Whidbey Island worked for the Haights.
“We can live anywhere we want,” Rachel Haight said. “He just needs to get to an airport.”
And Haight just needs to get close to orcas.
She hopes to someday return to college to study marine biology.
“It’s really shaped my life,” she said. “They’re why I moved up here.”
She even has orca tattoos on her feet.
Haight said she’s excited to live in a community that shares her passion, which was a tough sell in Omaha.
“I miss my Omaha friends,” she said, “but I don’t miss Nebraska at all.”
The Orca Network hosted a special gathering in Coupeville Aug. 8, commemorating the 45-year anniversary of the orca capture in Penn Cove.
The group is fighting to release Lolita from the Miami Seaquarium. She is the last surviving southern resident orca of more than 80 that were captured in Penn Cove on Aug. 8, 1970.
During last week’s commemoration at the Coupeville Recreation Hall, which included a ceremony by Samish elders, a transient orca was spotted in Penn Cove.
“When the sighting came in, it pretty much cleared the room,” Lemire Brooks said.
“We thought it was pretty special.”
