Swimming with orcas: where is it actually possible?

The short answer

Swimming with wild orcas, in an organised and legal way, is currently possible only in Northern Norway, during a few weeks of winter. Everywhere else, an encounter is either a matter of chance or against the law.

This page explains why, what it involves, and on what conditions such an encounter remains acceptable for the animals.

What the law says, country by country

New Zealand, often listed as a destination, expressly prohibits it: under its Marine Mammals Protection Regulations of 1992, it is an offence to swim within one hundred metres of any whale, orcas included.

Most other countries where orcas occur — Iceland, Canada, Antarctica, the United States — regulate approaches to cetaceans with minimum distances that rule out swimming alongside them.

Norway is the exception. It imposes no specific ban on entering the water, and the practice rests on voluntary standards set by operators themselves. That is a freedom, and equally a responsibility.

Why it all concentrates in Northern Norway

Regulation alone would not be enough without the animals. Every winter, vast shoals of herring overwinter in the shelter of the fjords of Arctic Norway, and the orcas follow, often alongside humpback whales.

Added to that are conditions found nowhere else: relatively sheltered waters, harbours that let you reach the area without hours of sailing, and a concentration of animals in a limited zone. We cover this on our page about orcas in Norway.

The trade-off is the season: a few weeks, in the depth of the polar winter, with daylight lasting only a few hours.

What swimming with orcas actually means

It does not mean diving into the middle of a group. You stay at the surface with fins, mask and snorkel, in a drysuit, floating at a distance while the animals carry on with what they were doing. They decide whether to come closer, or not.

No diving experience is required: being able to swim and breathe through a snorkel is enough. The water sits around 3 to 6 °C, which makes a drysuit essential, and the cold on deck harder to bear than the cold in the water.

Some outings end without anyone entering the water, because the sea is too rough or the animals are not in a suitable situation. That is normal, and it is a good sign: it means the decision is made on the spot.

The ethical question, which has to be asked

The absence of binding regulation in Norway has a consequence: the quality of the practice depends entirely on the operator. Scientists have raised concerns about the pressure that growing traffic places on animals in the middle of feeding.

Serious operators show it in concrete ways: a limited number of boats around one group, a slow parallel approach rather than cutting across their path, no pursuit of an animal that moves away, no contact or feeding, and giving up the water entry when conditions or the animals' behaviour do not allow it.

Asking an operator these questions before booking tells you more than any photograph. Our own code of conduct is set out on the trip page.

When to go, and what it costs

The season follows the herring, from late autumn into midwinter. The month you choose changes the available daylight, how often auroras appear and the cold: we compare these periods in a dedicated article.

On budget, offers vary widely depending on what they actually include — number of outings, group size, equipment, transfers. We set out that comparison in our article on price, and the safety question in the one on real risks.