A Vancouver Island woman is still in shock and emotional over what she witnessed on Monday — a pod of orcas swimming right under a pier she was on.
"My dream thing to happen happened. I don’t know if anything can be better after this,” Sara Evans told Glacier Media Tuesday.
Evans was camping at Miracle Beach Park in the Comox Valley at the time of the encounter.
She closely follows a Facebook group called Comox Valley Wildlife Sightings and quickly went out to Discovery Fishing Pier hoping to catch a glimpse of the majestic mammals.
“We strolled out there and then everything kind of got crazy,” recalls Evans.
Her heart racing, Evans was able to film the encounter.
“They actually went in behind the pier into the marina,” she says. “They were just coming up and going down [repeatedly].”
In one of the videos, a calf can be seen swimming beside a whale and coming up to the surface as a rainbow appears.
"I was a bit of a mess. I was crying, and just couldn't believe it was happening,” she says. “I’m very passionate about orcas.”
The Nanaimo resident adds she has always dreamt of having a ‘close-up’ encounter like she did on Monday.
“It’s so rare,” she says. “I was crying talking about it today.”
Evans believes the pod was hunting for food. The clear ocean water gave everyone on the pier a perfect view of the animals.
"It was just wow,” she says. “I was shaking so bad and I was just so emotional.”
The pod stayed near the pier for about seven minutes.
