{"id":375220,"date":"2026-01-17T13:06:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T13:06:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/375220\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T13:06:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T13:06:12","slug":"swimmer-surrounded-by-orcas-at-wellington-bay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/375220\/","title":{"rendered":"Swimmer surrounded by orcas at Wellington bay"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Wellington man has been left “pretty awestruck” after a close encounter with several orcas while lying on a pontoon at Oriental Bay. <\/p>\n

Joel Crampton said he had started going for nightly swims at the bay to get some quiet reflection and to pray. <\/p>\n

While lying down on the pontoon Friday evening, Crampton said he was startled after being “interrupted” by an orca whale who “spouted all over me”. <\/p>\n

“I was pretty awestruck in the moment,” he said. <\/p>\n

“That’s probably the last thing you expect to see on your evening swim.” <\/p>\n

Incredible moment Orcas surround swimmer resting on a pontoon – Watch on TVNZ+<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Joel<\/p>\n

Joel Crampton said he was “pretty awestruck” when he was unexpectedly visited by several orcas (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n

A video recorded by an onlooker shows Crampton standing up on the pontoon and looking down at the mammals in shock as they swam around him. <\/p>\n

Crampton told 1News the orcas were around 2m away from him. <\/p>\n

“A bit of fear set in. I didn’t know at the time that orcas were harmless,” he said. <\/p>\n

The Wellington local said he let the whales swim away before sprinting back to shore. <\/p>\n

He said the experience hadn’t put him off swimming at Oriental Bay and that he would likely return again the following evening. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Wellington man has been left “pretty awestruck” after a close encounter with several orcas while lying on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":375221,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[2851,90,56,54,55,37526,4407],"class_list":{"0":"post-375220","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-animals","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom","13":"tag-wellington","14":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=375220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375220\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/375221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}