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Whale watchers in Washington's Vashon Island were reaching for the superlatives recently as a pod of orcas made a rare foray deep into a local harbor, spending a day and a night there in what the source of this video said as a "magical" encounter. Fusako Nozaka was one of those lucky enough to enjoy the spectacle, as all 25 members of the J Pod of southern resident orcas paid their visit on November 5. "I received the notifications from the land-based whale watching groups I follow and drove and jumped on a ferry to get there in 1.5 hours and got lucky capturing this moment," Nozaka told Storyful. "[The orcas] surprised everyone by going inside the small Quartermaster Harbor," Nozaka added. "I had never seen them that close before! The pod was tightly grouped together, swam back and forth and kept slapping their tails," Nozaka said Southern resident orcas are exclusively fish-eating, and considered endangered. According to https://www.vashonbeachcomber.com/news/orcas-stun-by-spending-day-and-night-in-quartermaster-harbor/ the Vashon-Maury Island Beachcomber , no feeding behavior was observed during the whales' time in the narrow channel. The paper cited one expert as saying of the episode, Ã’In the research community, we are perplexed and wonder what this odd behavior indicates." (Footage by Fusako Nozaka/Storyful via Getty Images UGC)