The Summer Evening Near Runde When I Thought a Whale Had Found My Boat.
Some memories stay with you not because they were important, but because they made you laugh years later.
This is one of them.
Many years ago, I spent several months living not far from Runde on Norway’s rugged west coast. It was early summer, and one evening the weather was so perfect that staying ashore felt almost wrong.
The sun was resting on the mountain peaks as if someone had carefully placed it there. The sea was completely calm. Not calm by ordinary standards, but calm in a way that only happens a few times each year. The water looked less like water and more like a sheet of dark glass stretching all the way to the horizon.
I decided it was time to go fishing.
I started the old Norwegian fishing boat and pointed her toward Runde. The heavy hull moved steadily across the water while the old engine produced its familiar rhythm.
Tok… tok… tok…
The kind of sound that somehow becomes part of the landscape.
After a while I found a small inlet beneath the cliffs. It looked promising. I stopped the boat, cast my lure and waited.
Nothing.
I moved a little farther and tried again.
Still nothing.
For the next hour I repeated the same routine. Cast. Retrieve. Move. Cast again.
Not a single fish.
As darkness slowly began to settle over the water, I stopped once more and left the engine idling in neutral. The old motor continued its patient:
Tok… tok… tok…
I sat down at the stern near the steering handle. The sea was perfectly still. No wind. No waves. No birds.
Just silence.
Then it happened.
Directly behind me.
PFFFFFSSHHH!
A loud burst of air exploded from the darkness.
At the same moment something splashed water across my back.
I nearly jumped out of the boat.
My first thought?
Whale.
Not “maybe a whale.”
Not “could it be a whale.”
A whale.
A giant whale.
One large enough to swallow me, the boat and the old engine in a single bite.
Within seconds the throttle was fully forward. The old Sabb engine suddenly found energy it probably hadn’t possessed since the 1970s.
If engines could panic, that one certainly did.
A few minutes later I was safely tied up at the dock, staring back toward the dark water where the monster still lived.
Or so I thought.
The next day curiosity got the better of me.
I told the story to an older Norwegian friend.
He listened quietly.
Then he smiled.
Not a big smile.
Just enough to make me suspicious.
“Yes, yes,” he said. “There are whales around here. That’s why the place is called Kvalsvik.”
That answer didn’t help at all.
So that evening I returned.
To the exact same spot.
I stopped the boat.
Sat down.
And waited.
A few minutes later:
PFFFFFSSHHH!
Again.
Right behind me.
This time I gathered enough courage to turn around immediately.
Nothing.
No whale.
No giant shadow.
No monster from the deep.
Just calm water.
Confused, I sat back down and started watching the surface more carefully.
Then I noticed something.
Something small moving through the water around the boat.
It wasn’t a whale at all.
It wasn’t even close.
A curious porpoise had been circling my boat the entire time.
Every now and then it surfaced, took a breath, and disappeared again.
The loud explosion that had nearly scared me to death was nothing more than the sound of a porpoise exhaling beside the boat.
That evening changed everything.
I returned many times throughout the summer.
And almost every time, my little friend appeared.
Sometimes circling the boat.
Sometimes surfacing nearby.
Always curious.
Always playful.
Years have passed since those evenings near Runde.
I no longer live there.
The old fishing boat is long gone.
But every now and then I still think about those calm summer nights and the “whale” that sent me racing back to shore.
And I remember the old Norwegian who tried very hard not to laugh when I told him my terrifying story.
Looking back, I finally understand why he was smiling.
Because sometimes the biggest monsters in Norway turn out to be your future friends.
A Small Note About the “Whale”
Years later I learned that my terrifying sea monster was a nise — a harbour porpoise.
Norwegians see them so often that most barely pay attention when one surfaces nearby. For someone who had never heard one breathing from only a few metres away, the experience felt considerably more dramatic.
Especially in the fading light.
Especially when you’re alone.
And especially when your imagination is working harder than your fishing rod.