Orcas

In the summer of 2025, I made one of my dreams come true — I saw orcas in the wild for the first time!

To reach the San Juan Islands in Washington State, USA, we flew from Seattle in a small light aircraft. It was like taking a taxi, only in the air! The journey itself was a real adventure: from the plane, we had beautiful views of the islands and the ocean. Then we spent several hours travelling by boat across the ocean in search of wildlife. Along the way, we saw many different animals that live in the area. Then came the highlight of our trip — meeting orcas in their natural habitat. Seeing these amazing animals in the open ocean was unforgettable!

The orca is one of the ocean’s most amazing and intelligent predators. It is the largest member of the dolphin family. Adult males can grow to about 9 metres long and weigh several tonnes!

Orcas live in family groups and have very strong bonds with one another. Young orcas may stay with their mothers for their whole lives. They communicate using whistles, clicks and other sounds. Different groups even have their own “dialects” — distinctive sets of sounds that help tell one group from another.

This encounter was especially interesting to me because we saw orcas in the northwestern United States — the region where some scenes from the famous film Free Willy were filmed. I really love this film! It tells the story of the friendship between a boy and an orca named Willy and has become one of the best-known films about orcas.

Orcas are predators at the top of the ocean’s food chain. This means that adult orcas have almost no natural predators. Different populations hunt different prey, including fish, seals, sea lions and even large whales.

Orcas are highly intelligent. They can work together when hunting and pass their skills on to younger animals. For example, some orcas deliberately create waves to wash a seal off a piece of floating ice.

Orcas are incredibly strong, intelligent and social animals. After seeing them in the wild for the first time, I found these ocean creatures even more amazing.

You can also look at my photos from this journey: our flight to the islands in a small plane, the local wildlife and, of course, the orcas I was lucky enough to see in the wild. These photos will always remind me of an incredible adventure and the day when one of my biggest dreams came true!