Judie Johnson was swimming alone at Hahei Beach on the Coromandel Peninsula in New Zealand when she saw a huge shape appear from underwater. Initially, she thought that it was a dolphin but the black and white coloration made it clear that it was an orca. She found herself surrounded by three rather playful Orca whales — an adult, a juvenile and a calf.

Remarkably, the encounter was captured on video by a drone launched by an Australian tourist, Dylan Brayshaw, who saw the orcas heading toward Ms. Johnson. (See the video below the page break.)

“I was also thinking they eat seals and I’m in a black wetsuit,” Ms. Johnson told 1 NEWS.  While it was reasonable that she was concerned, there is no record of a wild orca outright attacking or harming a human. In captivity, however, there have been several non-fatal and fatal attacks on humans since the 1970s. 

After swimming some distance with the orcas, Johnson swam the beach but shortly thereafter returned to the water to complete her swim. She was joined by the orcas who returned to swim alongside her.

Ms. Johnson says she remembers gazing directly into the adult orca’s huge eyes, her fear quickly turning to joy.

“They were as interested and curious about me as I was about them.”

“It was so different to anything that’s happened to me before, and I thought, no, this is a life-changing experience.