This is the ‘once in a lifetime’ moment a fishing boat encountered a pod of killer whales in the English North Sea.
The group of about 12 orcas were captured on camera off the Northumberland Coast after another boat called in the sighting.
Glen Annison, 33, described the moment the whales appeared.
The pod of around 12 orcas was spotted by another boat and called in to a Northumberland fishing crew on Bank Holiday Monday
The Standsure, the vessel Mr Annison was on when he spotted the orca pod six miles east of the Northumberland coastline
Two killer whales can be spotted in the blue waters off Northumberland. A fishing crew stopped to film the ‘once in a lifetime’ moment
An orca swims off the Northumberland coast in an extremely rare sighting for a fishing crew over the Bank Holiday
Mr Annison, from Seahouses, Northumberland had never seen an orca out at sea until Monday
He said: ‘We went out this morning with a boat at 6am to go crab fishing, me and the three crew.
‘We went out of the harbour and another boat got sight of them and we thought ‘oh we’re not seeing them’ and then they just came out towards the boat.
‘All the lads were like ‘can we stop and video them?’ I said ‘no bother’ so we just stopped and took 10 to 15 minutes – it was a once in a lifetime thing.’
Mr Annison, from Seahouses, Northumberland, gave the location of the pod as six miles east of his hometown’s harbour.
He continued: ‘It’s the first time I’ve ever seen them anywhere. I’ve never seen a killer whale in my life apart from today.
‘I was speaking to my boss’ dad and he said he’d never seen one in 40 years here.
‘I’d heard of them in the Moray Firth further north but never down here.’
The 12-strong pod was spotted six miles from the coast of Seahouses in Northumberland as fishermen went out to work on their boat at around 6am
Orcas swim six miles off the British coast. Seals in the area had been ‘spooked’ according to fishermen
Mr Annison, who was skipper of the Standsure today, guessed that the killer whales were hunting seals in the area.
‘There’s always a load of seals around the Farne Islands and today they were right on top of the islands as far as they could get,’ he said.
‘There wasn’t any on some islands, so they’d been spooked by something.’
Orcas have an enormous range, but they’re still a rarity so far south, and are more typically associated with places like Iceland, Norway and America’s Pacific Northwest.
Mr Annison added: ‘We were over the moon to see them.
‘It was a beautiful sight. It was a nice day as well so it put a smile on my face on a bank holiday Monday.’
An apex predator, killer whales typically prey on seals and dolphins, as well as whale calves and even adult whales.