This my friend Philip and I were standing on the top deck of the MV Plancius, as we headed south from South Georgia towards the South Shetland Isles. After a slow start (no cetaceans and only a handful of Blue Petrels and one Snowy Albatross) we had reached approximately -56.376, -39.668, when Philip suddenly exclaimed he had seen a fin.
This gave me a shot of adrenaline which cleared by bleary eyes, and I focused hard towards the area he was looking. Sure enough, moments later, the distinctive shape of an Orca, probably a male broke the surface as it headed straight towards us.
The sea was pretty calm for once and we both commented how it looked ‘very black’. We knew what this meant, and when the Orca surfaced again a little closer, it seemed there was little in the way of an eyepatch. We dared to mention Type D, but surely we must be mistaken? We switched from our binoculars to cameras and the next time it came to the surface, we fired off a few shots, and sure enough, the images proved our hunch – a Type D!
-Jono Leadley
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