Mukilteo Musings

A couple of local news items:

1. Seattle has a new awesome library. My son saw it yesterday and I guess we are making the national news. Of course, there will be a latte stand on the third floor AND you will be allowed to carry around your covered drink anywhere. YES!! We are all used to carrying around our covered latte in a paper cup absolutely everywhere and anytime and it is OK in the new library!

2. Transient Orcas are in Dyes Inlet. This is totally fascinating to me. This is a small finger of water in Bremerton. Puget Sound has hundreds of little inlets, bays, coves, fingers of water everywhere. Transients are not our J,K, or L pods normally seen around here.

In 1997, the L Pod of Orcas swam into Dyes Inlet. They ate all of the salmon and it affected the Native American catch there but they were OK with it because they so revere the orca. It seemed the orcas were stuck in the inlet after the food was gone because of fear of swimming under a noisy bridge at the entrance to the Inlet. Experts concluded the pod had moved in in the middle of the night when there was no traffic but they were beginning to get worried about how to get them out.

A ferry captain reported that he watched the pod come to the bridge and then hesitate several times. Finally, one of the orcas made a run for it. Of course, he was just fine so he leaped out of the water as if to say to the rest of his family, "IT'S OK, GUYS, GO FOR IT!!!" And sure enough the rest of the pod followed and off they went.

These transient orcas are different. Transient orcas are not local, but are ocean going and rarely seen. Not much is known about them and they are unidentified. They will attack seals and distressed gray whales and eat them. Our sweet local J,K, and L pods of orcas ONLY eat fish and mainly salmon. They never never eat other mammals and have never ever been a danger to humans in a kayak, for example. So now, these transients are in little Dyes Inlet in Bremerton and the experts are pleading with people to stay on shore to watch them. Unlike our local pods, approaching in a kayak might not be a good idea!!! I wouldn't take my little dog to the beach there either.

Why this group ended up in the same Inlet as the L pod in 1997 is a huge mystery. We will have to see if they are equally afraid of swimming under that Bremerton bridge. Stay tuned!