ORCAS IN THE BAY
Orcas are uncommon in our bay, and some people would give anything to see one. Never would guide Peter have imagined that they would encounter a whole pod of orcas on the tour this very morning. That shows how unpredictable nature is... Read his story here:
This morning at 09:45, captain Björgvin and I left Húsavík harbour with our passengers on our beautiful boat Sylvía. With rain and wind ahead, all passengers were put into our warm overalls and waterproof raincoats, ready to face the North-Atlantic and with the chance of finding whales.
I was quite optimistic when I climbed into the crow’s nest where I have a better view around the boat – according to the motto “You never know…”. And then, not even half an hour into the trip, I spotted a big black fin – far away and only at the split of a second. “Could this possibly have been the fin of an ORCA?!”.
I piloted Björgvin in the direction where I saw this huge fin. Each second become longer and longer and the few minutes we were waiting there seemed to last forever. But then, out of nowhere we saw it again: a huge fin, and now I was sure; it just had to be a killer whale.
Just moments later we spotted even more. Four orcas came up at the same time, just 50 metres from the boat; one male with the huge fin, one female and two calves. Everyone, including me and the captain, became really excited, though Björgvin took it easy and approached them very slowly, hoping not to scare them off.
It turned out that the orcas we had by our boat were curious ones and they came up really, really close several times. Suddenly we spotted even more huge fins further north and realised that we were in the middle of a group of about 15 to 20 orcas. There were several huge males, some females and at least two calves. Not only did they come up a few metres away from us, the calves were also very playful, jumped out of the water once and slapped their flukes onto the surface.
After some time we decided to head back since some stomachs on board had enough of the rock’n’roll dancing and also because we did not want to influence the whales in their natural movements for too long. With soaking wet feet, frozen fingers but absolutely amazed by what we just had seen out there, we came back to Húsavík harbour.
To put a long story short: It turned out that my 101st trip in this season became one of my best trips ever. The same applies to Björgvin, the captain, as he told me on the way back. I hope that everyone on board had an unforgettable time and will always keep these experiences in mind.
(PW/LIA)
Photos taken by Peter Waltl.
