killer whale

Amazing home video recently shot off Oahu's North Shore shows an orca, also known as a killer whale, swimming around a fishing boat.

Waialua resident Jarret Kuni was out fishing with his friends when he spotted it.

"I was reeling a fish in and I noticed a shadow under the boat. I thought it was a shark, but then when it surfaced, my friend realized it was a whale," he said.

Kuni grabbed his GoPro and stuck it in the water, and was amazed to see how close the whale got to their boat.

He said it's one of the coolest things he's ever encountered in the ocean.

"I've never seen a killer whale that close. It was literally like under our boat. We thought it was trying to bump us over or something, because our boat was like a 27-foot boat and it was almost as big as the boat," Kuni said. "To see this whale kind of made my day."

David Schofield, with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says orca sightings in Hawaii are rare and happen about once a year, if at all.

"We don't believe we have any resident killer whales or orcas here in Hawaii. They're usually just kind of cruising through at different times of the year," he said.

Kuni says they were about 10 miles offshore when they spotted the orca.