I swam with wild orcas in Arctic Norway and it rewired my idea of self-care

There’s no time to hesitate when my captain shouts the word ‘go!’ I’m not ready, but I slide off the dinghy anyway, hitting the 4C water with more of a splash than I’d planned. The fjord swallows me whole, flooding my mask and gloves with water so cold it burns.

The bitter shock sends an electric jolt down my spine, awakening every nerve in my body. My instincts scream to climb back out, yet I can’t look away — Norway’s Arctic looks beautiful from the water. Fog rises several buildings high to meet snow-capped mountains, their peaks tinged with lilac light, and seagulls wheel above a fishing boat near the shore, herring dangling from their beaks.

Then I see them — enormous black fins cutting a path through the water toward me. I freeze for a heartbeat, then draw in a cold breath and plunge into the depths of the Altafjord. Face down, I stare into the deepest, blackest water I’ve ever seen. Panic rises as the current tugs at me and my thick drysuit slows every stroke, but I force myself to focus on my breathing, slowly inhaling through my snorkel while keeping my arms and legs loose. All around me, tiny particles of plankton scatter like stars and, for a moment, it feels like I’m floating through space.

That’s when a shape emerges from the abyss — black, submarine-like, with flecks of white flashing like reflectors on a bike. An orca. A high-pitched clicking sound pulses through the water, reverberating through my ears, then my chest. The apex predator swims towards me letting out a whistling sound, like air escaping a balloon, and as she passes she rolls slowly, revealing her white belly and fixing me with her left eye — the side scientists believe to be linked to curiosity. She’s so close now I can see her oval eye patch, the faint mottling on her skin and a scar on her pectoral fin. In that moment, I feel the panic drain away, the cold slightly subside. For the first time since leaving the boat, I’m calm. She looks right at me for what feels like forever, before disappearing into the depths, leaving just a faint silhouette.

Learning the lingo

Every winter, thousands of orcas travel to northern Norway to feed on herring migrating from summer feeding grounds further south. It’s one of the world’s most significant seasonal gatherings of killer whales — and yet, finding them is never guaranteed. “I want to manage your expectations”, were dinghy captain Sebastian’s first words to us when we boarded Orca Norway’s expedition boat, our base for the next three days. “What you see on social media is the highlights, but the reality of finding orcas is unpredictable and requires patience.”

Earlier that morning, we’d left the port of Alta — an Arctic town six hours north of Tromsø — aboard Sula, a sturdy 1960s Norwegian maintenance ship that once plied the coast repairing lighthouses. We’d boarded the boat the night before under the green and purple glow of the Northern Lights, and overnight temperatures had dropped to -20C, coating the deck — and the inside of my cabin window — in ice.

By the time we reach the Altafjord, dense fog has settled over the water, making it almost impossible for the crew to spot orcas. For hours, we motor slowly through white nothingness, hoping to reach an area where the visibility and our chances might improve. Eventually, in the far north of the fjord, the fog begins to thin and, after hours of waiting, the crew spot two large pods of killer whales.

Hands shaking with adrenaline and the cold, I pull on my drysuit and scramble down into the dinghy, slick with snow and ice as it bangs against the hull. I sit on the rubber edge gripping the icy rope and try not to slip in too early.

All around us, dorsal fins surface and disappear. They’re close enough to quicken my pulse, but Pierre, our underwater guide, doesn’t move.“They give fake windows sometimes,” he says, readjusting the clip on his weight belt. “If you enter at the wrong moment, you miss everything.” Pierre is wearing a custom freediving wetsuit, his face almost entirely covered by a neoprene hood, save for a few wisps of white beard. Even out of the water, he looks more fish than human.

Known as the ‘Orca Whisperer’, Pierre Robert de Latour has spent the past 27 years diving with orcas in Norway, clocking up more than 9,000 cetacean encounters — not just with killer whales but also humpbacks and dolphins. Right now, he’s standing at the back of the dinghy, scanning the surface. Even when the orcas approach the boat, Pierre doesn’t rush us in. He watches them instead: the direction they’re travelling, which individuals are surfacing and whether there are calves in the group. Every few seconds, his eyes flick between the water and the horizon, reading patterns I don’t yet understand.

Years of observing behaviour like this have led Pierre to develop his own technique for swimming with orcas — one that minimises disturbance for the animals. He teaches guests to keep their distance, to swim parallel with the pod (never in front or behind) with minimal movements, and to always let the animals dictate the encounter.

“Orcas have their own code. You just have to learn to read it,” says Pierre during one of our evening seminars aboard the ship, where we learn about their behaviour. “It’s not about chasing them. It’s about showing respect and allowing them to decide whether they want to interact.”

Pierre nods once and he’s in. “Go.” This time, I don’t hesitate. There’s not just one orca, but dozens. Two playful pods move around us, left and right, their white markings flashing in and out of the dark. I feel myself getting breathless again, but this time it isn’t fear — it’s something closer to awe.

I glance at Pierre across the water as he dives below the surface. He moves differently from the rest of us — slower, more gracefully, as if he’s part of the current rather than fighting against it. He adjusts his position subtly, angling his body sideways, mimicking the orca’s movements with slow, fluid kicks. As I watch him, it becomes clear to me that this isn’t just good freediving technique, it’s a body language he’s learned to speak.

Suddenly, Pierre’s body language changes and he points urgently ahead, in my direction. Looking down, I see the shadow of two enormous humpbacks almost directly below: the deep grooves along their undersides, the flash of white as they unfurl their long, flat fins. The humpbacks and orcas are moving together now, filling the fjord with a chorus of clicks and whistles so loud I feel it vibrate through my entire body. I experience a sudden swell of emotion I hadn’t been expecting, and my mask fogs with tears.

“I’ve always felt something special when I’m in the water with orcas — like this wave of energy,” Pierre tells me later, when I share how the orca and humpback’s song had stayed with me long after our dive. “At first, I thought it was just adrenaline. But over time, I realised it was the sound.”

As such, Pierre has spent more than a decade recording cetacean sounds and speaking with scientists who study whale song. Much of that acoustic language remains undeciphered, but he believes its impact extends beyond communication. “One researcher told me he observed a humpback giving himself a kind of sound massage,” he says. “And this is something I’ve also seen with orcas.”

More than 27 years of diving in Arctic waters, Pierre tells me, has kept him in great shape. But he also believes that these encounters — and the sounds, in particular — have played a role. Pierre has even begun sharing some of his recordings with wellness centres and spas, where they’re used as a tool for relaxation. “These sounds can help people feel calmer and more balanced,” he says. “After every season here, despite the cold and exhaustion, I feel strong —and I think that’s because of the orcas.”

On my final dive, the call comes to return to the boat. I hold onto the ladder with numb hands and glance down to find my footing. Beneath me, an orca circles slowly, belly up, her white markings pale against the darkness. Despite the dropping temperature and fading light, I find myself lingering there, not wanting to leave the water. For the first time since getting in, I realise I no longer feel the cold.

That night, I sit in a wood-fired hot tub on Sula’s icy deck, steam rising into the black air, the fjord lapping gently at the hull. Above, the Northern Lights ripple green across the sky. In that moment, I feel a deep sense of happiness wash over me — the afterglow that follows a spike of adrenaline, when the body finally settles. The image of orcas moving beneath me keeps replaying in my mind, their clicks still loud in my ears.

A few months ago, I wouldn’t have classed diving in subzero temperatures with an apex predator as a wellness activity. But I’ve come to realise that self-care isn’t just about relaxation, it’s about experiences that recalibrate the body entirely: the sharpness of cold that jolts you awake; the surge of adrenaline when you come face to face with a whale; the calm that follows as you’re stripped of gravity and sound, cradled by a deep blue ocean.

“It takes weeks, sometimes months, to understand what you felt in the water,” Pierre tells me as Sula’s engine rumbles, slowly carrying us back to shore. “The experience is so intense, the emotions so complex, you don’t process it straight away. But when you do,” he adds, “you’ll be hooked for life.”