Killer Whales Spotted Chillin’ off Chatham

A chill is creeping into the air, and students are flooding back into the city, signifying an end to summer fun. But don’t tell that to the pod of killer whales squeezing in a little time down the Cape before Labor Day.

Alex Wyckoff, 17, of Brewster, and his three friends said they spotted four whales swimming past their boat on an otherwise uneventful fishing expedition 12 miles off the coast of Chatham, a favorite hangout among the Cape’s white shark population.

“We have seen white sharks, but since the whales are foreign to these waters for the most part, we were ecstatic,” Wyckoff told the Globe. “We did not know they were orcas at first, because we only saw the spouts. But they ended up being very playful and swimming alongside the boat.”

Wyckoff and his pals sent the video—in which one can be heard screaming, “It’s a killer whale, baby!” to the nonprofit Atlantic White Shark Conservancy, who in turn shared it on their Facebook and Twitter accounts.