Not another bloody whale

The reason for coming to New Zealand was twofold

1. To celebrate my sister's 50th birthday 'cause I forgot her 40th
2. To see the whales at Kaikora

The two should not be confused

We celebrated Sue's birthday earlier this month, and a good time was had by all.

On Monday it was the turn of the whales.

First a bit of geography

No, no, don't go to sleep, this will only take a minute.

At Kaikora the continental shelf comes close to the shore in the form of an underwater fiord. This is deep enough for whales to live, and this is the case - several whales throughout the year and I believe it is also the breeding ground for some whales.

Kaikora used to be a whaling town, but now there is a company that runs sightseeing tours to view the whales, and I bet it's a lot more lucrative.

We started at 10:00am. There was some doubt as to whether the tour would go ahead as there was some wind offshore - apparently if it gets too rough then the customers get sea sick, so the tour is geared to conditions that ensure that the customers aren't going to redecorate the boat with last nights meal/the morning's breakfast.

First of all there was a video (this is a whale, this is a lifejacket; you wear one and take photos of the other).

Then we were bussed off to the south harbour where the tour was to begin. The harbour scarcely deserves the name - the boat itself is boarded on the dock where it is sitting in a kind of trolley, and then the boat is pushed down a ramp into the sea.

We then made our way out to sea. The sea swell was moderate but not a problem, although certain members of the group started clutching their paper bags; I can see why they might have problems if it got rough, which is a pity, because being on a boat is a bit like being on one of these roller coasters, and a lot more fun.

Once we got to deep water we almost immediately saw our first sperm whale (so called because of the white sticky stuff they found in the head of the whale - if you don't know what I'm talking about go and ask your father).

Basically the whale browses along the surface for about 10 minutes then dives; so what you get is a photo of something that is sure to come out looking like a rock, followed by a photo of the whale's backside as it dives; the whale stays down for between 45 minutes to an hour. So, the system is to watch the whale until it dives, then move on to the next one.

We did this five times.

There was a bit of entertainment when we were joined by two guys in a motorised dinghy who were from the Otago University and were studying the whale. The guide on our boat tool great delight in pointing out that the whale that they had decided to follow did NOT like boats sitting on it's tail - our own captain had moved off to the side. The whale kept raising its head out the water - a sure sign of irritability. Given the fact that the sperm whale is not vegetarian and has a nice set of teeth and can be belligerent we readied our cameras, but regrettably the whale dived instead of rending the dinghy and it's occupants to pieces, which would have been a nice photo.

After about 2.5 hours at sea we made our way back to harbour, passing a few dolphins and a rock full of seals on the way.

All well worth it.