Rowers joined by three orcas on Atlantic challenge

A team of four rowing across the Atlantic were joined by three orcas for part of their crossing on Tuesday.

Clare O’Reilly from Wembury, Devon, and teammates Rosie Tong and Mel Jarman set off on 14 December for the World’s Toughest Row – 3,000 miles (4,828km) from The Canaries to Antigua – and expect to finish their journey by 23 January.

O’Reilly said seeing the marine mammals was “a really exciting encounter” as they came “right up to the boat”.

“They were touching the bow of the boat – which was incredible, not to steer it off course, they were just kind of curious. It was a really, really beautiful experience.”

O’Reilly said the team had seen other sea life including marlin and tuna and one of them was stung by a jellyfish “whilst she was washing her cup in the sea”.

The rowers said since beginning they had been rowing two hours on, two hours off – leaving them with no more than 90 minutes of consecutive sleep.

O’Reilly said this muffled any potential fears of the killer whales when seeing them.

She said: “Had they decided to do anything obviously we wouldn’t have had much of a say in it, but actually they just felt really inquisitive, they were just really curious.

“In the moment it was just incredible because we weren’t sure what it was to begin with, we could hear the blowholes but we couldn’t see them.

“To have the three of them by the boat for a good kind of five, six minutes was incredible.”