You can see a couple of the pics I bumped the ISO down to 200. What do you recommend in these conditions? The shutter speed worked perfect to capture still images (I wanted to freeze frame the water droplets as you can see in a couple pics). I am just used to shooting at f/2.8 because I usually need as much light as I can get. Also, I love the bocah effect I get with the background out of focus. IMO it makes for a great shot! What would you do first? Lower the ISO or adjust the aperture? As far as I know a lower ISO produces a better image, no?
While you were shooting sea creatures splashing water everywhere on the west coast, I was simultaneously shooting humans splashing where the sea creatures live on the east coast. The lightning and subjects are strikingly similar. Actually I had 1 extra stop of light to work with but ehhh close enough.
You were shooting a dolphin @ 100mm, 1/4000 was way overkill on the shutter speed. It is just wasted real estate. I froze my water flying through the air just fine with 1 2/3 stops less light. Even mine was probably overkill but I gave myself a nice margin of error. I would have put all that shutter speed into aperture...at the very least bring your ISO down to 100.
The ability to dilate your lens' pupil to f/2.8 is an empowering attribute. That isn't to say you should use f/2.8 every single time just because you can. Save f/2.8 for the times you would curse under your breath because your lens can only go to f/4 or f/5.6. If using f/5.6 would actually be better in a situation than f/2.8, you can use that to. If you don't specifically need any depth of field or shutter speed requirements, I gladly use f/5.6 - f/11. Most lenses exercise greatest finesse around f/8ish. Every lens is different though. I would guess the 100mm f/2.8's sharpest aperture around f/11.
In your 2nd orca photograph, you used:
Aperture f/2.8
Shutter Speed 1/4000
ISO 200
You were in full manual mode (impressive)
100mm (100mm f/2.8 Macro)
In this photograph, I used:
Aperture f/7.1
Shutter Speed 1/1250
ISO 200
I was also in full manual mode
80mm (200mm f/2.8 IS) *IS was disabled even though I left the tripod at home
I offered to e-mail the photograph to the rider (who I had never met) for one of his ice-cold water bottles. Having just ended a several hour surf session myself, that was some great tasting water!
This is my friend Chris, who took my avatar. I took this of him while you were picking up frags as well.
In this photograph, I used:
The exact same exposure settings as the skim boarder above. The lighting hadn't changed so why should they be different? I still had IS turned off, and used 200mm instead of 80mm.
and gives me the best quality pics... I didn't want to haul around my camera bag and have to keep swapping lenses... Although a telephoto would have made more sense and would have gotten me even closer to the subject, I really feel the 100mm produces FAR superior pictures than my 18-55mm kit lense and 55-250mm telephoto. Luckily, with the shooting distance from most of the subjects, 100mm seemed to work out just fine! 
