In August, ORCA Ocean Conservationists Gemma and Maggie boarded Fred Olsen's Balmoral, for a cruise around Iceland. Gemma shares their experiences in this week's blog:
Since beginning my journey with ORCA, I have been lucky enough to encounter some truly memorable wildlife and visit amazing places, all whilst collecting data that contributes to our understanding and conservation of whales, dolphins, and porpoises. Although the wildlife I have encountered during surveys has been a major highlight of my time with ORCA so far, the people I have met along the way have been equally as rewarding and inspiring. Meeting people from all walks of life and helping them connect with marine wildlife has been a genuine privilege and is a huge part of what I love about the role.
My most recent voyage around Iceland with my colleague Maggie was a perfect reminder of just how much of a team sport wildlife watching at sea can become.
Trying to point out a whale or dolphin in the middle of a seemingly featureless ocean can be surprisingly difficult. My natural urge is to yell out “it’s over there!” but I am aware that this is remarkably unhelpful when “over there” ultimately consists of several hundred square kilometres of the North Atlantic. Getting everyone’s eyes in the right direction often involves using a somewhat bizarre, shared language using whatever landmarks you can find to guide people towards the animals:
“All the way out towards the horizon!”
“Just down from the edge of the headland!” or
“See that slightly lighter patch of water? Just to the right of that!”
What I particularly love is how quickly people begin to pick up and use this language themselves within the lovely little community that forms out on deck. Throughout the trip, we soon gathered an enthusiastic group of regular watchers who would station themselves across different sides and decks of the ship with binoculars and cameras at the ready, creating an impressive network of extra eyes across the ship. It was wonderful to see people so determined to help us search for wildlife, and to share in their excitement when they began spotting whales or dolphins themselves.
As anyone who has been wildlife watching at sea will know, you can spend hours scanning the horizon before something suddenly appears, sometimes only briefly before disappearing again. For me, that uncertainty is part of the excitement. Of course, briefly going inside for a coffee, or to warm up is almost guaranteed to be the precise moment that something appears. In our case, heading inside to deliver a presentation seems to have much the same effect. After one particularly quiet morning spent surveying from sunrise, I headed inside that afternoon to deliver my talk, only to return to excited and highly amused reports that pilot whales (one of my favourite species) had appeared whilst I was presenting! Several guests independently told me that whale watching reminded them of a KitKat advert from the 80’s, in which a photographer waits patiently outside a panda enclosure, only for the pandas to emerge dancing and roller-skating the moment he turns his back to eat his KitKat.
This became something of a running joke amongst our regular deck watchers, as whoever had briefly stepped away would return to discover what they had inevitably missed. Even Maggie and I weren’t safe from the ‘curse’, occasionally coming back from meals or other duties to enthusiastic accounts of dolphins or whales that had appeared in our absence. Thankfully, despite the ‘KitKat curse’ our patience was rewarded with some utterly spectacular encounters.
One especially memorable morning deck watch started quietly with calm seas and beautiful morning sunlight glistening across the water. I was chatting about killer whales with a few guests who regularly came out on deck to try and spot wildlife with us. We had been chatting about some of the fascinating aspects of killer whale behaviour, including their culturally learnt preferences for particular prey, distinctive dialects and close familial bonds.
We then heard an announcement from the bridge that “orca whales” had been seen at the bow.
“I can’t believe it- we must have manifested them by chatting about them!” I half joked.
As we were at the opposite end of the ship, we quickly scuttled towards the bow, eager to try and spot these iconic whales. Suddenly, I saw the truly unmistakable sight of the towering, glossy-black dorsal fin of an adult male killer whale cutting through the sea almost all the way out to the horizon, followed by several smaller fins.
“There they are, I see them!” I said excitedly to the gentleman beside me. Keen to get his eyes onto them, I began directing him: “Nearly all the way out to the horizon, travelling left to right. You’re looking for that big black dorsal fin in particular-that should help you spot them”.
“Oh yes! Got them!” he replied.
I was thrilled. We quietly watched them pass us by together and, after chatting to him further, I discovered this was his first ever time seeing these incredible animals. It’s moments like this, when one minute you are chatting about a particular species to someone to then suddenly actually watching them appear on the horizon- that almost make you wonder whether there was something in our joke about manifesting them after all. Maggie and I logged the sighting and were both delighted to have been able to share the experience with so many excited people, several of whom told us that seeing killer whales had made their trip.
The killer whales were just one of many fantastic encounters during the voyage. From the enormous, mottled blue body of a blue whale, to energetic white-beaked dolphins, pilot whales, harbour porpoises and minke whales, Iceland treated us to magnificent wildlife.
We watched humpbacks repeatedly breaching against the dramatic Icelandic coastline and admired plenty of beautiful seabirds as well. I had never seen so many puffins in my life and particularly loved pointing out a little puffin bobbing along beside the ship to a guest who had never seen one before.
As if the wildlife and stunning scenery wasn’t enough, we also experienced a total solar eclipse which was an extraordinary moment that made the voyage even more unforgettable.
By the end of the cruise, our little community of wildlife watchers had become truly seasoned spotters. On our last sea day, a long stretch of no activity was broken when suddenly a minke whale surfaced right beside the ship.
“WHALE” I yelled, making sure everyone on the other side of the ship heard me. We had all joked throughout the trip that the ship must tilt whenever wildlife appears, as everyone immediately rushes to the same side.
Suddenly, sightings then seemed to erupt all around us. Shouts of “WHALE!”, ‘DOLPHINS!”, “SPLASH!”, “BIRDS!” and “BLOW!” came from every direction as people cheered, pointed and guided one another towards whatever they had spotted. Someone spotted a humpback tail slapping in the distance; Maggie, several guests, and I watched whales lunge-feeding on the other side of the ship; and energetic white-beaked dolphins launched themselves repeatedly out of the water before racing into the distance. It was a fantastic atmosphere. Then, as suddenly as it had begun, everything went quiet again and remained so for a while. Maggie and I took the opportunity to briefly head inside for something warm to eat before our final evening survey. Naturally, the KitKat curse struck again. We had barely sat down when one of our lovely regular deck watchers hurried in to find us.
“QUICK, you’re missing it! There’s a whale, we’re not sure what species it is, and seals and loads of birds and splashing!”
“We’re on it!!”
We shovelled down our hot crumble, grabbed our jackets and binoculars and dashed back outside, just in time for some final glimpses of the minke whale. As people showed us photographs of what they had seen and cheered each time the whale surfaced nearby, a lovely lady dressed beautifully for dinner, braved the cold wind to come outside and ask, “What whale was that? We were all cheering up in the restaurant and we wanted to know what it was!”
“That was a minke whale! I’m so glad you saw it!”
“Fantastic! I’ll go and tell the others we definitely did see a whale!”
I loved the thought that the excitement and buzzing atmosphere we had shared out on deck had spread throughout the ship, with people cheering together even from inside the restaurant. Watching people who had joined us on deck throughout the cruise now confidently spotting wildlife for themselves, helping others to get their eyes onto it and sharing their excitement across the ship felt like the perfect end to our adventure.
Seeing the strong emotional responses that whales and dolphins stir in people gives me enormous hope. Every conversation, question and shared sighting on an ORCA survey is another opportunity to strengthen the connection between people and the marine environment.
I am incredibly grateful to everyone who joined Maggie and I on deck throughout the voyage- thank you for your patience, enthusiasm, questions, sharp eyes, good humour and willingness to brave the Icelandic weather alongside us. Thank you also to those who so generously shared their photographs, allowing me to showcase some of these encounters through the eyes of the people who experienced them with us. The wildlife may be what initially draws us out onto deck, but for me, it is the experience of sharing these moments with others that makes each ORCA survey truly memorable.
Gemma Rae - ORCA Ocean Conservationist
Main image credit: Alison North
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