A DIVER has told of the "awesome" moment he came face-to-face with a killer whale.

Martin Johnson, 42, was on a scuba diving trip to the Shetland Islands when he caught sight of a group of the creatures.

He said: "I was just about to come up when I looked above me and there was a dark shape. Instinctively I put my arm up, thinking something was falling on me.

"But when I looked more closely I could see it was a killer whale. This 20ft, black and white beast was looking at me practically eyeball to eyeball."

Martin, a member of Hyndburn Sub-Aqua Club, was in a narrow gully about 26 metres below the surface, at a shipwreck off Hillswick.

He had seen a nature programme about how killer whales took seals to eat and feared he might be treated as prey.

"After a few seconds I thought if it was going to eat me, it would have eaten me by now," he said.

Martin, of Lowerfold Road, Great Harwood, continued to watch as a smaller whale about 7ft long - probably a baby - swam past. Then another two whales followed.

He said: "It was absolutely awesome. To watch them move effortlessly through the water...it was like they were jet propelled."

Martin said his only real fear while watching the animals was that they would crush him if they decided to turn round in the confined space he was in.

He surfaced safely after spending about five minutes watching the whales to find his companions on the boat - his wife Anne, and their friends Peter and Eileen Thomson from Clayton-le-Moors - had been worried for his safety.

Martin said: "Anne had seen seven of them. Her first thought was 'I hope they haven't eaten Martin'."

Martin, a self-employed television and video repairman, was to have another brush with the whales the following day at another dive site.

He saw what he believes to be the same group of whales frantically trying to grab seals from the shore.

He said: "We could recognise them because one of them had a piece missing from his fin.

"They were doing their best to get at the seals, even running themselves up on the rocks to get them.

"It has never been recorded that they would ever attack a human but to see them in this feeding frenzy, they could easily make a mistake.

"I was thinking that as a man in a black rubber suit I looked awfully like a seal!"

Back home, Martin scoured the internet for information about killer whales, also known as orcas.

Adult males can grow up to 32ft long, although the largest he saw was only about 20ft. Their diet usually consists of salmon, herring, birds, seals and dolphins.

He said: "I have been diving since I was 14 and I have seen killer whales before from boats, but only a fin in the water.

"When I saw these I got the shock of my life but that only lasted for a few seconds. I know it was the chance of a lifetime and something that I will probably never see again."

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