Into the Orca’s Kitchen

Position: 35°57’06.4″N 5°50’56.4″W

Orcas are wild animals. No amount of anthropomorphising changes that. For the past five years Iberia’s orcas have been ‘interacting’ with boats up and down the Spanish-Portuguese coast. Interacting means physical contact. Anything from a bump to a broken rudder counts. Over 740 interactions have been recorded since 2020.

To prepare for our crossing, Carol and I joined noforeignland (aka NFL), a sailing community. For some reason we’d overlooked this excellent organisation until this year. The sub-group Finding Dory IV supports westbound trans-Atlantic sailors. The group’s emcee, Peter Casier, arranges Zoom webinars and shares insights via WhatsApp. The second webinar was titled, “Sailing safely through orca territory”.

Rui Alves runs the website orcas.pt and regularly updates it with orca interactions and sightings along the coast of western Europe and North Africa. Given our goal of stopping in Morocco, Carol emailed him for advice. His TL;DR reply? If you’re heading to the Canaries, sail only as far as Portugal and head as quickly as you can for deep water. Really deep water. If you’re going anywhere else, stick to the shallows (20 metres or less) where orcas don’t like to go. Looking at his heat map of orca interactions around the Strait of Gibraltar you get his point.

How do you tuna Fish?

There are a few other things to bear in mind. Orcas aren’t out for revenge. They’re out for tuna. Specifically, Atlantic Bluefin tuna. Where the tuna go, so go the orcas. Anywhere fishermen catch tuna or set nets you’ll find a history of interactions.

Tunas migrate seasonally. Each year, starting in March, they head out the Strait of Gibraltar and swim west towards the cooler waters of the Atlantic. In July, mature tuna swim north around the Iberian Peninsula towards Galicia’s rich feeding grounds. Hungry orcas follow them and chase them down. Get in the orcas’ way and they’ll think you’re competing for their food. They’ll knock your rudder off if you don’t heed them. They are, after all, Killer Whales.

So, forget about stories of a mamma orca’s vengeance for an injured baby. Forget about orcas taking common cause with Greenpeace as retaliation for mankind’s pillaging of the oceans. Ignore the scientists that tell you orcas are merely playing with the boats they sink. It’s all anthropomorphic nonsense. Like Deep Throat might have said, “Follow the tuna.”

Barbate

Our last stop before entering the Orca Kitchen was Barbate, a tuna fishing village-cum-resort in the armpit of Cape Trafalgar. Without reading the cruising guide, our approach took us through the frothy narrow channel between the Cape’s beautiful lighthouse and the treacherous shoals it’s there to warn you off. A couple of boats had passed through the channel ahead of us and we had another behind, so I wasn’t too worried. Outside Barbate’s harbour the chart’s yellow special purpose buoys (Mar-Jul) clearly indicate seasonal tuna nets. That jives with the hotspot map. The map also shows that tuna and therefore orcas go around the shoals of Cape Trafalgar in deeper water.

Arriving late, we were nevertheless greeted by a friendly marinero who helped tie our lines and take our money. The marina is stark and angular in the way all Andalusian marinas are. It is also far enough from town to make it a decent walk for ice cream. Only, don’t bother looking after the end of September, all the tourist spots have closed down.

The marina is also a haven for cats and seagulls. One pushy grey and white cat (Carol named her Niva for her foggy wraith-like appearance) conned a full tin of tuna fish out of us. Lauren booted her off when she looked like she wanted to hitch a ride.

In case you’re wondering, it is my understanding that if you’ve checked out of a country, you are allowed safe passage (i.e. to stop in port) along your way out. Just don’t tarry longer than the weather or seas would plausibly delay you.

Plans are Useless

Planning is something Carol and I do a lot of. But as Lauren observed, we’re not committed to our plans once at sea. After all, as Helmuth von Moltke said, “Kein Operationsplan reicht mit einiger Sicherheit über das erste Zusammentreffen mit der feindlichen Hauptmacht hinaus.” (“No operational plan can extend with any degree of certainty beyond the first encounter with the enemy’s main force.”) In our case our ‘enemy’ is nature. In other words, when the heat gets turned up, we’re happy to leave the kitchen and seek shelter.

Examining the weather forecast for the next few days, and considering this was our third journey through the Orca Kitchen, we had two options. Head down the coast and probably sit in Tarifa for a couple of days waiting for 30 knot winds to settle down, or heed Lord Nelson and head straight at them!

Given my analysis of the seasonality of orca attacks and the current belligerent’s location around Lisbon and Galicia, I figured the risk of bumping into an orca on a straight passage to Tangier was minuscule. Carol, thinking I was committed to the shallow route, was surprised by my bold volte-face. Lauren wanted more data, while Wade was a little perplexed by our different positions.

Having played up the orca risk for the past week, if not for the past few years, he understandably lost a little faith in our decision-making process. After a few deep Google searches and Perplexity.ai prompts, Lauren was satisfied to the point that Wade was willing to suspend disbelief. My concerns lay more with getting across the shipping lanes safely and wondering just how much harder the wind would blow through the Strait than the forecasts predicted.

Ankle Biter

Crossing from Barbate to Tangier is a straight shot of 25 nautical miles. With winds bending southwesterly around Cape Spartel, I reckoned we could use the set from the outbound tide to compensate for our southeasterly, offwind heading. The only trouble was shaking the current that gripped Aleta’s keel like a Pekinese biting at her ankle. Under full canvas, Aleta made a scant 4.5 knots in 15 then 20 knots of wind. With the apparent wind 70 degrees off, she should have been making at least 6 knots.

We slogged along like that for a good 40 minutes until we reached the westbound shipping channel. Timing was good. A gap of 10 miles opened up for us. As soon as we started crossing the sea lane, Aleta finally shook off the Peke and started accelerating. So did the wind, now gusting to 25 knots. I asked Wade to ease the main, then ease it again as Aleta heeled to 30 degrees. By the time we reached the much busier eastbound lane we were doing between 6.5 and 7 knots. A couple of tankers were running alongside each other, but both would pass in front of us. Further back, the cargo ship African Wanderer didn’t answer Carol’s hail on VHF. But with our speed now touching 8 knots and Aleta’s rail shushing through the water, we would pass a mile or more in front of her.

Spray

The seas stood up, choppy with wind on current. Spray blew off the whitecaps covering everything in salt. Sitting on the windward coaming, Wade got doused by a couple of boarding waves. Nothing too serious. Still, as soon as we could we rounded up and dropped the main and shortened the jib. Everything and everyone settled down and we carried on at a more stately 5.5 knots. Next time we cross the Strait, I’ll tuck a couple of reefs in the main before setting out. Changing sails in the middle of a busy shipping lane is a fool’s game. Much, much better to reef early.

What about the orcas? Losers! A total no-show! Instead of fiery tom yum soup we got cool gazpacho. The Orca Kitchen is now closed for the season. Pity. It would have been nice to have seen one – from a distance.

B.A.D. (Best Available DATA)

If you’re a data maven, here is an analysis of where and when orcas took a side order of boat with their tuna. This data isn’t perfect (it comes from two different tracking sites), but it is directionally correct. Use it at your own risk! We at aleta.life take absolutely no responsibility for your crap decisions. (Click on the image below for a PDF chock full of data!)

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