Whale-come to Gisborne

Passengers off the visiting cruise ship Star Breeze got a whale watch experience for free as they were tendered into port. A tender is pictured heading back out to the ship with an orca in the foreground, one of a pod of four. Picture by Liam Clayton

A small pod of orca came calling in Tūranganui-a-Kiwa/Poverty Bay yesterday, making its way into the inner harbour and attracting plenty of attention.

The two adult killer whales and two juveniles swam in the bay for several hours. Surf lifeguards on patrol at the city beaches spotted them and went out to investigate in an IRB.

The whales ventured deep inside Eastland Port. They swam up as far as the inner harbour basin and had a good look around, much to the delight of people around the port and passengers off a visiting cruise ship.

Touchwood Fishing Charters had a charter out and saw the whales on the way back in.

“Wow, what an epic trip we had today,” the company said on social media. “The absolute icing on the cake was as we were coming into port and passed the five-knot mark, to our great joy we saw four orca by the tugboats. So cool!”

The Higgins family were on their way out fishing at about 9am when they spotted the orca and took several photographs.

“We stayed with them for about half-an-hour,” Jason Higgins said.

“Then we went fishing for an hour, caught some snapper for tea, and when we came back, they were still there in the bay just cruising around. It was really cool to see.

“My 15-year-old daughter Leana has always hounded me to come out on the boat hoping to see some dolphins or whales.

“It was her dream come true.”