First Encounter with Orcas
by Sandrine Pantel
Iceland is the country where I fell in love twice last year.
First with the country itself on my first trip there in February. Even if the weather conditions were quite extreme, I was at once fascinated by this wild and harsh land, its landscapes that seemed to be from another world, its magical light, and the feeling of being submitted to nature’s forces that comes with visiting this island.
The second time was in June, when I had the privilege of flying to Iceland once more, a visit during which a whale-watching tour was planned. If I am to be honest, I was not interested in orcas at that time, because I didn’t know them. I loved the ocean and I was aware of the importance of preserving its ecosystems, its populations of species as amazing as they are diverse, the dolphins, the whales, the sharks…
But I didn’t know orcas. I had never read any books or watched any documentaries about them, I had never even seen the famous movie Free Willy as a child! Hoping to see whales on that tour, the sentiment was at first quite a disappointment. No blue giant swimming alongside our boat, no graceful behemoth emerging from the surface in an amazing splash of water… Just the chilly wind, the still waters under a white sky, plenty of birds like puffins and northern gannets… I just love being on a boat and it was very relaxing and peaceful, but the excitement was slowly disappearing as minutes passed, leaving the sad feeling of a missed opportunity, something that could have been the encounter of a lifetime.
Marie used that time to explain us everything she could about the marine mammals living or travelling in the waters off the coast of the Snæfellsnes peninsula, all the while casting glances around the boat in the hope of spotting a splash, a breath or a fin in the distance.
All of a sudden, our patience is rewarded: a sperm whale has been spotted by the other boat of Láki Tours! A whale, we are going to see a whale for the first time… Our boat rushes to catch up with the other one and, once arrived on the spot, stops at a reasonable distance, not too close so as not to disturb the sperm whale, but still close enough to allow us to see its back very distinctively above the water. And then the whale dives under the surface and lets us glimpse, for a magical moment, its fluke rising out of the water. The whale had already gone out of our sight, but what a sight.
Then it is already time to start our way back to the harbour and it seems this lone sperm whale was destined to be our only glimpse of the incredible Icelandic marine fauna.
We get silent and feel sadness and regret once again, even if we know very well that nature is not here to fulfil our wishes. We are on our way back and Marie nicely tries to comfort us by offering us a cup of tea. As our hopes start to fade away completely, she suddenly emerges from the boat’s cabin and smiles. “The tea will have to wait; the other boat has spotted a whole group of orcas!”
We can’t believe our luck, at the very last minute of our tour. But since I don’t know orcas very well, I don’t know what to expect. I don’t realize that orcas travel in family groups and I don’t expect to be as moved as I actually am when we finally encounter them. The other boat of Láki Tours pulls away, choosing to give the orcas space and then we are alone with them. Their sight takes my breath away and I feel my eyes starting to fill with tears, especially when I think of the other orcas imprisoned in small concrete tanks all over the world.
They feed around us, emerging and diving over and over again in harmonious movements, chasing after the herrings they like to eat here. They recognize the sound of the boat’s motor and don’t fear us at all. I realize how intelligent they are, how close and connected to each other. It is a privilege to get to admire them in the wild and to spend a short time in their company. Marie explains that one of the female orcas had not been named yet and that we get to give her a name: Maya now roams the Icelandic waters with her family, and I hope to meet her again one day!
Our boat slowly pulls away and I remain on the deck to keep them in sight for as long as I can, taking a last picture of an orca diving in the distance. This was the day I got to meet orcas and started to care for them. All it takes is one encounter in the wild and the urge to help protect them becomes irresistible.
Back to France, I started to work closely for an association fighting against whale and dolphin captivity in marine parks, I even adopted an orca of the Northern Residents community of Canada, but I wanted to do more.
Dedicating my next holidays to help raise awareness of their beauty, their intelligence, their importance and the many threats they face became a real goal for me.
And here I am, ready to fly back to Iceland in one week’s time to volunteer for Marie and her association Orca Guardians Iceland. My dreams start to fill with images of new encounters with orcas, I start to see orcas everywhere in my everyday life… in a word, I slowly but surely become obsessed with them! And I hope to be able to share my obsession as well as moments of joy with the next persons choosing Láki Tours for a (hopefully) memorable journey to the world of orcas.
