News Releases

Lunacy:
When an orca gets up close and too personal -- and you can't do anything about it

Story and Photos by Greg Middleton

Re-typed from Pacific Yachting - December 2004 issue

It came out of the blue. I was below when I heard my crew yell there was a killer whale right beside the boat. "Oh no, it's Luna," I thought, rushing to grab the wheel. I felt a hard blow that nearly jerked the wheel out of my hand; then another; and another. At some point in those first few panic-stricken seconds the steering failed. I knew instinctively that the rudder was swinging free. I cut the engine. The whale was right under the boat.

It was mid-August and I was heading in to Gold River to reprovision and change crew on a trip around Vancouver Island. Little did I know this sudden encounter would stay with me for several days.

My only thought was to try to get away from Luna. I threw open the starboard side compartment and grabbed the emergency tiller. I slipped it into the hole in the rudderstock and started up the engine, hoping to get steerage back and escape. Within seconds the boat was again disabled and we were at Luna's mercy, under attack, being pushed around in circles with no hope of escape.

Again, the whale hit the rudder hard, shoving the emergency tiller around against my leg. I heard a bang below and thought the rudder had hit the prop. Fearing even more damage to my boat, I jerked the emergency tiller out and shut the engine off. The whale was shoving the boat around in circles. Every time he came up and blew, the cockpit was showered with spray. I knew the trip I had dreamed about for years had just run into a big problem.

NO WARNING
That morning I had talked to some of the half dozen sailboats anchored in Friendly Cove. There was talk about whether to take off to avoid deteriorating weather or not. I was planning to stay to fish so I decided to go into Gold River to wait out the bit of bad weather. No one mentioned any concerns about taking the boat in to Nootka Sound.

I had listened to the weather and to any Notices to Mariners and kept the VHF on Ch 16 during the day. I am pretty cautious. My crew and I had gone ashore at Friendly Cove and had not seen any notices warning boaters about Luna like the ones I later saw at Gold River. We were completely unprepared for what happened as we came out of Zuciarte Channel and around Anderson Point heading toward Hanna Channel.

I had been vaguely aware of Luna, an orphaned orca who had been hanging around in Nootka Sound, but I never expected this. I had heard that he disabled a sailboat the year before but thought it was a fluke, that they had been in some way trying to interact with the whale and he had accidentally hit the rudder. I was not looking for Luna and never expected Luna to come looking for me. I was stunned when Luna appeared out of nowhere. We had not seen him blow or surface until he appeared right in front of the boat. Now he was dogging the boat and going after the rudder.

HELP ARRIVES
I got on the radio and called Tofino Coast Guard for help. The radio operator told me they were trying to contact someone from Fisheries and Oceans Canada. We were fortunately opposite Mooyah Bay, which has a logging camp and fish farm, when it happened. Tim Elliott, from the Grieg Seafood fish farm, answered my distress call.

In the 15 minutes or more before Elliott arrived to help, I had to monitor my crew and boat's safety while the whale pushed us around like a beach ball. I told my crew to stay in the centre of the boat and away from the whale.

I had to form a plan of action if the boat looked like it might go down or onto the rocks. I did not want to harm the whale and knew that if I did I would probably end up in a lot of trouble -- no matter how justified my actions were. Despite Luna pushing my boat in circles we were able to rig up a towline.

Once under tow, I was better able to assess the damage to my boat. A quick check determined that the quadrant had broken. I figured that if we could get away from the whale, I could make my way into Gold River, and then on to Campbell River to find a welder.

I expected Luna to lose interest in my sailboat once I reached the dock at the logging camp at Mooyah Bay, and planned to make repairs to my boat and continue on my way. But over the next four hours I watched in growing horror as Luna continued to harass my boat, going back over and over again to swing the rudder around one way and then the other, banging it hard against the propeller. The whale, which is about five metres long and weighs over 1,360kg, would go out and push log booming boats around but always came back to my boat.

My crew caught a ride in with the loggers to Gold River and made their way back home. Staff at the logging camp allowed me to use their satellite phone to call DFO, my insurance company and the Coast Guard, who I asked to put out a Notice to Mariners.

DFO informed me that now that I was tied up to the dock, I was not allowed to do anything to Luna to get him to leave my boat alone. Later that afternoon, fisheries officer Ed Thorburn showed up and we watched the whale push the rudder over and over again. I was beginning to worry about the rudder coming out and the boat going down. Thorburn told me that while his heart bled for me, he could do nothing. I asked him if I had to just stand there and watch my boat sink if that is what it came to. He said yes and tried, unsuccessfully, to lead the whale away with his boat as he left.

The loggers said they would try to tow me out the next day if they could. They offered me a shower and coffee.

I learned that the whale was seen as a big pet by some and damned nuisance by others. Early that evening, the whale followed a tug with a tow off up the inlet.

TAKE TWO
The next morning, after being told Luna was probably up in another bay where the tug was, I decided to try to get into Gold River on my own. I rigged the emergency steering and headed out. I got no more than a few hundred yards when the rudder was again hit hard, and the emergency tiller bent. Luna was back and I was under attack again.

I didn't think the rudder would take much more of this and pulled the emergency tiller up. I got on the radio again. This time the crew boat from the logging camp towed me in -- the whale riding on the bow wave of the huge aluminum boat. For another 12 hours the whale was at the back of my boat at the rudder. When he was bored of the rudder, he'd start tossing my dinghy around until I pulled it out of the water. He would go off for a few minutes if another boat came in, but he always came back to my boat.

The loggers said they would try to get me out the next morning.

I was trying to get someone to come out from Gold River to tow me, but was later told that people were afraid of Luna -- the natives and the pro-Luna faction in town. Some people thought this incident might be the one that forced DFO to act and no one wanted to be part of it.

I was now hearing lots of other stories of Luna damaging boats and some amazing stories, such as the one about Luna dropping a salmon in a fisherman's skiff. At one point someone from the logging camp came down and borrowed my deck brush to scrub Luna's back. The Uchuck, the little coastal freighter that plies this part of the coast, came by and the tourists gawked, oohed and ahhed as Luna put on a show for them. They were thrilled to see such a magnificent animal up so close, and in some ways I couldn't blame them.

But I was now just about beside myself with frustration and despair. It looked to me like my rudder was starting to wobble. Some of the loggers expressed sympathy and made plans to haul my boat over to the beach if it started to go down. Others told me they would kill me if I did anything to hurt the whale. This is all starting to seem like some kind of surreal lunacy to me.

I called Coast Guard again to find out why there was still no Notice to Mariners and was told their officials were in meetings with DFO. Finally I was told the owner of the logging camp would come get me with his towboat in the morning. I was beginning to realize how political all this was. Later that day the Notice to Mariners was on the radio warning boaters to avoid the area.

Donn Cox, the owner of Spirit Lake Timber, the company logging at Mooyah Bay, arrived in his tug and we rigged up a side-by-side tow. There was no sign of Luna during the two-hour tow into Gold River. As I arrived in Gold River I had to deal with a TV reporter and calls from other reporters. The next day boat surveyor Laurie Langill arrived and suggested trucking the boat out.

FOUND AGAIN
Over the next couple of days I watched Luna, who has turned up at the dock, rubbing against and shoving around boats tied up in Gold River. He left my boat alone until I and the crew from Nautech Industries tried to move it. He hit the rudder hard again a few times. We used ropes to haul the boat around, being careful Luna didn't manage to push the boat away from the dock.

A commercial fisherman showed up looking for me to tell me Luna disabled his fish boat. Everyone in Gold River who has a boat seems to have stories about Luna doing damage to it. No one has depth sounders that work -- Luna has ripped off all the transducers. But there are also those thrilled to have Luna there; tourists keep arriving looking for a way to see the internationally famous "friendly killer whale of Nootka Sound." I watched the whale try to knock the outboard off a small speedboat.

The boat movers finally showed up and my boat got hauled to Comox for repair.

Later, after a meeting with DFO where I showed them a video I took of the encounter, John Ford told me he had seen orca attacks and believed this was just play -- dysfunctional play by an orca that has no other orcas to play with. He admitted the whale's actions were more focused and dangerous than he had seen in the past.

I heard more stories about boats being damaged -- about five that week alone, some quite seriously.

The damage to my boat was much more serious than we thought. The prop, prop shaft and the strut were all bent. DFO announced they will put up more signs, put out a brochure and pay the natives $5,000 a month to monitor the whale. A few days later another commercial fish boat was damaged.

I hear from sources within the DFO that the plan is still to try to move Luna to Pedder Bay and I am told it will take a "serious incident" before they will consider the next options -- capture and an aquarium or, if that does not work, euthanasia. More than a month and $10,000 later, my boat is repaired and back in the water. I arranged to do a few speaking engagements at yachting groups to warn people to give Nootka Sound, or wherever Luna is, a very wide berth.