--- title: New Zealand Man Encounters Orca on Paddleboard: Video description: "He slowly crept up and grabbed the back of my board" canonical: https://time.com/3891588/killer-whale-paddleboard-new-zealand/ author: Samantha Grossman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-05-20T22:01:06.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:20:05.813Z og:title: Watch This Paddleboarder's Extremely Close Encounter With an Orca og:description: "He slowly crept up and grabbed the back of my board" og:url: https://time.com/3891588/killer-whale-paddleboard-new-zealand/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Watch This Paddleboarder's Extremely Close Encounter With an Orca twitter:description: "He slowly crept up and grabbed the back of my board" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Watch This Paddleboarder's Extremely Close Encounter With an Orca by [Samantha Grossman](https://time.com/author/samantha-grossman/) ## Samantha Grossman May 20, 2015 10:01 PM UTC by [Samantha Grossman](https://time.com/author/samantha-grossman/) ## Samantha Grossman May 20, 2015 10:01 PM UTC A New Zealand restaurant owner named Luke Reilly was doing some relaxing stand-up paddleboarding when an orca whale popped up out of nowhere. Naturally, things got a little less chill. “He popped up about 10cm away from the back of my board,” Reilly [told](http://www.3news.co.nz/nznews/paddle-boarders-close-encounter-with-curious-orca-2015051915?ref=fb#axzz3aelKxy7r) 3NEWS. “I was a bit nervous thinking, ‘what’s this guy going to do?'” Reilly happened to have his GoPro with him, so he managed to film the encounter. He admits he was a “bit freaked out” while it was happening, but ultimately figured the animal was just curious. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3891588/killer-whale-paddleboard-new-zealand/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3891588/killer-whale-paddleboard-new-zealand/"},"headline":"Watch This Paddleboarder's Extremely Close Encounter With an Orca","datePublished":"2015-05-20T22:01:06.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:20:05.813Z","description":"\"He slowly crept up and grabbed the back of my board\"","url":"https://time.com/3891588/killer-whale-paddleboard-new-zealand/","keywords":["Newsfeed","animals"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Samantha Grossman","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/samantha-grossman/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3891588/killer-whale-paddleboard-new-zealand/","name":"Watch This Paddleboarder's Extremely Close Encounter With an Orca"}}]}] ```