Nina, Nils, Till and “Niniti”

Nina (15 years old), Nils (12 years old) and Till (9 years old) from Germany visited Snæfellsnes with their parents in March and April 2015. There were several orca groups in the area at that time, and everyone became hooked on watching these orcas right away – both from land and on the water.
The boys helped Marie with hydrophone recordings during the boat trips, and the whole family would scout for orcas from land in any wind and weather. After hours and hours of patiently waiting in the rain or snow storm (often really early in the morning!) they were rewarded with numerous close and captivating orca encounters from the coast.
The kids had quickly picked “their” orca: SN106, offspring of Aurora (SN105), and a newborn calf at that time. They named it “Niniti”, using the first two letters of their own names, and, from then on, were always eager to find out if Niniti was sighted and what was going on with its family.
Nina, Nils and Till loved it so much that they convinced their parents to come back one year later, in April 2016, to try and spot orcas (and especially Niniti) again. They missed Niniti and its family by one day, but had some other great close orca encounters on the boat, and got to see orcas far away when spotting from shore as well.
During both visits in 2015 and 2016, they never got tired of checking with their binoculars from land, day after day, for the orcas to come in. After their second visit, the whole family adopted Aurora and Niniti. They all hope to come back yet again to watch orcas at Snæfellsnes sometime in the future. Until then, they are rooting for Niniti from home!