Orcas

Only a few narrow channels pierce this rocky rampart that shelters the young sea lions playing in the pools left behind by the ocean. They await the rising tide to carry them to frisk along the little beach open to the high seas.

Far away, out beyond the northern tip, the dorsal fin of a male orca – 1.6m long, black, straight as a sword - parts the sea, in a display of irresistible power. He moves fast, very fast, his breath regularly misting the horizon, while his dark head emerges between two waves like the bulb of a submarine. In just a few minutes, the whale is at the entrance to the channel facing the beach. He dives and disappears …. not a breath, not a fin… no sign of his presence.

After a moment's wary pause, the sea lion cubs go back to their watery games.

Suddenly, just 10 metres from the beach, the dorsal fin of the orca again breaks the surface. The sea rises up, lifting a gigantic, dark body that rushes like a tsunami towards the petrified young sea lions. Time is suspended. The sea lion cubs try to flee towards the safety of the land. To survive… one of them is hurled outwards by a storm of foam. The monstrous black and white head is on him, shaking him with terrifying violence. Thunderstruck, the survivors watch as their brother is put to death. Even the sea seems to retreat, leaving the orca high and dry on the beach! The master of the ocean, come to claim his due in a world that is not his, is himself in mortal danger …

But the orca lifts his head as if to show us the still-quivering prey crushed between his jaws. Then with a sharp jerk of his lower back, he pivots on the strand. His tail flukes thrash the sea, he braces his body, rolls to one side, then the other and returns, little by little, to the liquid element he should never have left.

He makes for the sea to share his catch with the young, inexperienced orcas that have not yet learned to cross the frontier of their ocean.

François Sarano, Galateefilms