Bucket brigade heroes of a Kaipara whale tale
A dramatic orca stranding in Kaipara Harbour yesterday had a happy ending after the pod of 11 were rescued.
The Department of Conservation confirmed just before 7pm that the group had been refloated from a sandbar with the rising tide.
“It is believed they were chasing food and became stranded,” DoC tweeted, thanking a group of boaties who kept the pod alive.
The stranding was about 1.5km to 3km southwest of South Head.
First to the rescue of the eight adults and three calves were a group of 10 fishing buddies on charter boat Ali-Kat who, armed with fishing buckets, jumped on to the sandbar to help about 1.30pm.
Hillsborough man Marnix Kelderman, 52, was among the nine men and one woman on Ali-Kat, skippered by Ali-Kat Charters’ owner Wayne Kostanich.
“We saw what looked like dorsal fins on the water. [The whales] were highly distressed, flapping their tails. The young were screaming. A couple of the big ones had rolled over and their blowholes were covered,” Kelderman said.
“They were effectively drowning.”
Another three were not moving at all, he said.
Orca Watch and the Coastguard were called but told the group they could not get there for a few hours.
Kostanich dropped the anchor and he and nine of those on board — all Aucklanders involved in the building industry — jumped into the waist-deep outgoing tide to help, Kelderman said.
“We’re just friends who go on a fishing trip . . . there’s a painter, builders, an alarm specialist. I’m a forensic scientist.”
They used fish buckets to keep the mammals wet as the water dropped to ankle-deep before the tide turned.
All 10 helpers were needed to turn over the rolled orca.
“They were pretty hard to roll over. We all put our backs into it.”
He believed the whales were trying to help their rescuers.
“They were swivelling their tails to help. Beforehand it had just been unco-ordinated whipping.”
Everyone was careful to be aware of the tails and to stay clear of their mouths, he said.
“You didn’t feel you were in danger. At no stage did I feel like we were at risk.”
Despite the effort involved from 1.30pm until a boat equipped with hoses arrived at 4.15pm, he didn’t feel tired, Kelderman said.
“We just jumped in and then suddenly you realised an hour had gone. The time went really quickly.”
It was a good feeling to know the group had been able to help.