Giants Of The Deep

In The Fjords Of Northern Norway, A New Safari Offers Guests An Experience Without Parallel: The Chance To Swim With One Of The Largest Gatherings Of Orcas, Or Killer Whales, Anywhere On The Planet.

- Flora Stubbs

IT HAD JUST TURNED ONE O’CLOCK on a frigid day in January, and already the light was beginning to fade. By 2 pm, it would be completely dark. From the deck of a trawler out in the Norwegian fjords, the ocean looked deeply forbidding: choppy, black, and bone-numbingly cold.

For the divers lined up on the prow, however, the conditions were perfect. Under the surface, a pod of orcas had gathered, drawn by a shoal of herring that had migrated to this stretch of the Norwegian Sea that morning. The divers were about to swim with the orcas in their natural habitat, something few amateurs have experienced. One of them was Felix Odell, the Swedish photographer who shot the images on these pages.

In an interview after his return from Norway, Odell admitted he’d had some misgivings before setting off. “My daughter, who’s eight, was really frightened,” he recounted. “ ‘Maybe they’re going to eat you up,’ she said.” Standing on the deck in his dry suit, snorkel, and mask, the temperature below zero degrees Celcius, he had hesitated. But once he was in the water, his apprehensions evaporated. “It felt great, completely natural,” Odell said. “And because of the Gulf Stream, the water was actually warmer than the air.”