I’ve mentioned orcas a few times in some of my previous blogs whilst sailing in the sighting hotpots like the Portuguese coast and the straights. For this voyage, I thought, as you probably would, there would be no need to worry about the orcas. So imagine my surprise when there was an all hands on deck call followed by “Orca! Orca! Orca!”. I made my way up into the cockpit, and sure enough, there was a big black dorsal fin cutting across the water in front of the bow. In total, there were 3 orcas circling us, presumably curiously stalking. In contrast to previous boat’s procedures, we hadn’t formed any plan to execute should we see orcas because it was generally thought that you didn’t see them in this part of the ocean. We were around 300 miles downwind of Cape Verde and in a race, so simply turning on the engine and heading for land wasn’t an option. All we could really do was sit tight and hope that they wouldn’t go for the rudder. Luckily, they didn’t and after a few minutes of them swimming under and around the boat, their curiosity was satisfied, and they disappeared. Even though I was a little nervous, I was in awe of their size and speed.
What an absolute pleasure to see these amazing creatures and get away unharmed.