Orca

Date : Sunday December 9th 2007
Location : Tysfjord, Norway
Position : 68-13N 15-50E
Species : Killer whale Orcinus orca,
Total number seen : 6-8 orcas

Remarks
From Bognes today. The weather today was really nice, almost no wind and beautiful sky! Just before Tiltvika,a few nautical miles west of Tysnes we saw a herring boat in the horizon, lets go there and check it out maybe the orcas are around. Suddenly we saw orcas just in front of the Leonora, 6-8 individuals and with a little calf. They where identified as the NG's. It seemed like they were on their way to the herring boat as well. Later we saw that they were cleaning their fishing nets. - Maybe they recognized the sound of the fishing nets going in to the water from the herring boat, Per Ole said. That probably is the case because they had the course set straight towards the boat and when they got there they were swimming around the net and eating. There where also a lot of seagulls feeding as well as a few sea eagles and there were also a lot of behavior- spy hoping, tailslaping and also sleeping!

Orca

Date : Saturday December 8th 2007
Location : Tysfjord, Norway
Position : 68-19N 15-55E
Species : Killer whale Orcinus orca,
Total number seen : 9 orcas

Remarks:
Per Ole, the captain of the Leonora said that a big research boat have whales just 4 nautical miles away west of Barøya but they were traveling toward Ofotsffjorden very fast. We saw the orcas briefly and then they dissapeared. We've lost them for almost 40 minutes. Together with the research boat and some other boats we spread out over a wide area but no whales. Then closer to Tysnes they showed up again and all of us got a close look once more.






De zodiac from the research boat

Orca

Date : Wednesday December 5th 2007
Location : Vestfjord, Norway
Position : 68-13N 15-29E
Species : Killer whale Orcinus orca,
Total number seen : 5 orcas

Remarks:
We went out with the M/V Leonora from Skutvik, one hour drive with the bus from Tysfjord. Yesterday the orcas where seen near the Lofoten Islands, so they moved the boat to Skutvik. If the orcas are still around, it wouldn't be such a long time to get there. When we had left the harbour the message arrived that the orcas where seen near Tysfjord! That was two hours away with the Leonora. The zodiacs went out in front of us to find the orcas and we would follow.
We found the orcas in the Vestfjord, close to the lighthouse of Tranøy. It was a group of 5 or 6 orcas with 2 big males. They were swimming very fast in the direction of the Lofoten Islands. They where porpoising on the waves, a way of travelling we have only seen by transients orcas in British Columbia.
Because they where swimming so fast in opposite direction of the zodiacs, they unfortunately never saw the orcas today.











In the early morning at 00.30 hrs the Northernlight was stunning. We weren't able to make any photos by ourself because we couldn't get our camera in the right settings. These photos are taken by Hasse Andersson and he was so kind to share his photos with us. Hasse THANKS for a great week in Tysfjord!!