After an unsuccessful first day searching for Orcas and Humpback Whales, we tried the second day again. This time, there were many other boats around, both fishing vessels as other whale watching boats. At first, we didn’t see anything, but then: “Orca!! 2 o’clock!!” And there they were. Several pods spread out over the fjord.

We saw several large males, adult females, young males and even a few very young ones, the most immature maybe only a few days old. Once a group had disappeared, we could easily find a new group to look at. Sometimes a bit further in the distance, but also reasonably close to the ship. It’s fantastic to see these highly intelligent animals in their natural environment.

There was only one downside to this encounter. Over the years, whale watching has become very popular in this part of Norway. Which, of course, is a great thing. It’s super that so many people get the opportunity to enjoy these creatures. However, we sometimes had the idea that the whales were being chased by some of the boats, or sometimes RIB’s were driven right into the group, which or course scattered immediately. We tried to keep our distance and left it to the whales to decide whether they wanted to come closer or not, but this didn’t always happen. After a while, when there were six other boats around ‘our’ group, we decided to continue and not bother them any longer.