There’s one thing we sometimes learn too late when travelling: what matters isn’t what we’ve packed, but what we’ve forgotten to pack.
I’d prepared everything. Everything except the essentials.
The idea was simple: to go and watch orcas and humpback whales in the Norwegian fjords in December, and photograph them underwater. I’d bought a waterproof housing for the Canon 5D Mark IV — a lucky second-hand find that had sealed the fate of this trip. I’d ordered the accessories, the seals and the grips. I’d spent hours reading up on underwater photography, the settings to use and the pitfalls to avoid. I’d contacted Valhalla Orca Expedition in Seglvik, booked the trips and organised the journey: a flight to Tromsø, then a bus north to that little hamlet at the end of a fjord where the orcas spend the winter with the herring.
I was prepared.
But before Seglvik, there was Tromsø.
Just one night, whilst passing through. I’d already been here in 2019 — and seeing these streets again, these shops, these cafés where the light is warm and the coffee is piping hot, it really moved me. A city you love, you recognise it straight away. The same painted wooden façades, the same harbour, the same Arctic cathedral on the other side of the bridge. I went for a walk, popped into the same café as in 2019, and watched the people go by. There was a sense of nostalgia in all of it, and a touch of sadness too — the sort you don’t explain to passers-by, the sort you keep to yourself at the bottom of a cup.
I set off again the next morning, heading north by bus.
What I’d forgotten to ask myself: what’s the light like at the end of December, at this latitude?
In December 2024, I was in the Faroe Islands. Little light, short days, but light all the same — that low-angled northern glow that can be magnificent when it deigns to show itself. I’d kept that in mind as a point of reference. Seglvik couldn’t have been very different.
What a mistake in geography.
The Faroe Islands are at 62 degrees north latitude. Seglvik is at 69 degrees. Seven degrees further north – it doesn’t seem like much on a map. In reality, it changes everything. In December in Seglvik, the sun doesn’t rise. Not at all. The polar night begins in late November and doesn’t end until mid-January. What there is instead is a twilight — bluish, uncertain — that appears around nine o’clock in the morning and disappears around two o’clock in the afternoon. Five hours. Five hours of diffuse light that comes from nowhere, casting no shadows, with no direction, no colour. No dawn, no sunset. Just this pale glow that settles in and fades away without warning.
Now imagine what that’s like underwater.
I’d bought a waterproof housing to take photos in the dark.
The Canon housing stayed in my bag for a while. Then I took it out, just for the sake of it, for some snorkelling. It was -5 degrees on the zodiac. Perhaps even colder with the wind. We dressed accordingly: a survival suit, thick fleece gloves, a balaclava and goggles. This outfit has one main advantage — it keeps you warm. It has one major drawback for a photographer: with fleece gloves on, it’s virtually impossible to operate a camera. The controls, the dials, the buttons — nothing responds. We take off the fleece gloves and put on thinner ones. Within a few minutes, our hands are frozen. So we put the fleece gloves back on.
I spent part of the Zodiac trips watching the orcas with my hands in my pockets.
Orcas are fast. This isn’t new information; I knew it intellectually. What I hadn’t realised was what ‘fast’ actually means when you’re trying to photograph them from a Zodiac bouncing over the waves, with gloves that make your fingers act of their own accord, at dusk, forcing you to crank the ISO up to outrageous levels — and even then, only during a five-hour window, provided you’ve set out at the right time. Humpback whales are more cooperative — their movements are slow, almost deliberate; they blow for a long time before diving. You have time to get ready. With orcas, it’s a different story: a dorsal fin breaks the surface, and two seconds later, it’s gone. You press the shutter too late, or too early, or in the wrong direction.
I’ve been a photographer for a long time. This trip reminded me what it means to reach one’s limits.
Snorkelling deserves a paragraph of its own.
It’s a lovely idea: getting into the water when the whales are nearby, seeing them from below. The guide jumps in first, we follow, and we swim towards the animals. In theory, it’s an extraordinary experience. In practice: the water is a few degrees above zero, and beneath the surface, the five hours of bluish twilight outside are of no use whatsoever. It’s pitch black. Not dim light — pitch black. You can see a few metres in front of you, no further. I had my weight belt around my waist, over my wetsuit, the underwater camera in my hands. A humpback whale swam past — massive, slow, indifferent, barely a few metres away. I pressed the shutter button.
The images are there somewhere, in a RAW file. A grey blur in black water.
And then there was that moment.
I was on the surface, looking down towards the depths — the water was dark, with almost nothing visible. And suddenly, there it was. Down below. A humpback whale, motionless at first, then it began to move. Moving forward, turning, gliding through the black water with a slowness that didn’t belong to our world. Not a quick pass. A dance. Slow, sweeping, complete. I watched it for a long time.
At one point, I stopped trying to film it.
I don’t know exactly when. It wasn’t a conscious decision — just the realisation that the camera would serve no purpose here, and that what I had before me deserved better than to be viewed through a viewfinder. I put the camera down. I watched.
That is the clearest memory I take away from Seglvik.
So here’s a piece of advice if you’re planning this trip: if you’re not an experienced photographer with genuine experience of taking photos at sea, in suitable physical conditions — leave the camera behind. Take your time. Just watch. The spectacle is magnificent, unforgettable. And come back to take photos when there’s more light.
I’m 64 years old.
I mention this not to complain, but because it’s a fact that’s relevant to what follows. After thirty or forty minutes in a zodiac at -5 degrees, putting the weight belt round your waist over your wetsuit and jumping into the water: it’s doable. Swimming behind the guide whilst trying not to lose sight of the orcas: it’s doable. Holding the camera in the cold water with hands that are starting to lose their grip: just about manageable.
Climbing back into the zodiac.
That’s when I realised I should have done more physical training before setting off. A Zodiac doesn’t have steps. You have to pull yourself out of the water, with the heavy wetsuit, the weight belt, and arms already tired from the cold. The guides help – they’re efficient, experienced, and know exactly how to grab, pull and stabilise. It’s doable.
But ‘doable’ and ‘prepared for’ are not synonymous.
One morning, on the way back, the weather changed.
The storm hadn’t been forecast — the weather is never 100 per cent certain in these waters. We couldn’t return to the Seglvik base. The zodiac made its way through the darkness, the waves rougher than on the way out. It was midday. Midday, and it was night — pitch black, complete, without a hint of light. Because outside the twilight window, there is nothing. That’s another thing about December at 69 degrees north: total disorientation, time losing its meaning, the feeling of sailing towards midnight when it’s not even past lunchtime.
It’s at times like these that you realise just how valuable the people guiding you are.
They were brilliant. Calm, decisive, without a word too many. They knew exactly where to go — Valhalla’s second base, accessible from where we were. We arrived. They got us dressed, warmed us up and fed us. Things moved very quickly despite the unexpected turn of events — I realised that this doesn’t happen often, that it was a rare occurrence, and that if they handled it so effectively, it was precisely because they know these waters as well as one knows one’s own flat in the dark.
I spent the night in a local resident’s little summer cottage. I don’t know who he was. The house was simple, clean and quiet. Outside, the storm, the fjord, the Arctic darkness. Inside, warmth, calm, and that strange feeling of being exactly where one needed to be — even if it wasn’t where one had planned to be.
What I brought back from Seglvik in terms of photographs doesn’t live up to what I’d imagined. Honesty is called for here. There are some images — dark ridges against dark water, plumes of white vapour vanishing into the blue twilight of eleven o’clock, a few silhouettes of snow-capped mountains before the darkness takes over once more. There is something in there that is true, which perhaps conveys better than anything else what the Arctic is really like in the depths of the polar night. But that wasn’t what I’d set out to capture.
What I’d forgotten to take into account: that on 26 December, at 69 degrees north, the sun doesn’t rise. That five hours of bluish twilight are no substitute for daylight. That the speed of orcas is incompatible with polar gloves and frozen hands. That climbing back into a zodiac at the age of 64 after being submerged in freezing water requires preparation that cannot be improvised. And that a storm, a night spent at a stranger’s house, and guides who keep their cool — that’s all part of the journey, whether you’ve planned for it or not.
One last thing, and it’s an important one.
Everything I experienced there — the Zodiac trips, snorkelling in freezing water, the storm, the impromptu overnight stay, and also those moments when a whale dances beneath your feet in the darkness — none of it would have been possible without Valhalla Orca Expedition. They’re passionate people, and you really need to be to do this job. Passionate, skilled, and above all conscientious — because you quickly realise just how difficult it is to look after people from all walks of life, of very different ages and physical abilities, in such conditions, and to remain available and attentive after a long, exhausting day in the cold.
I’d like to thank Jeff and Diego from the bottom of my heart — whose photos and videos are magnificent and well worth a look — and, of course, everyone else. The welcome we received in Seglvik deserves an article all of its own.
(Diego’s Instagram: [link to be added])
I’ll be back. Not straight away — I’ve got other plans in mind. But I certainly will be. In January, when there are properly a few more hours of daylight. With a better understanding of what this terrain demands. And with a few months of serious physical preparation under my belt.
But I’ll also cherish this trip for what it was — not the trip I’d planned, but the one that showed me exactly where my limits lie. And which, on a stormy morning at eleven o’clock at night, placed me in the hands of people who knew theirs perfectly well.
That’s invaluable information. You won’t find it in travel guides.