Off the Whales!

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January 30th


We woke at around 10 to see that there were four vans parked in the vineyard the other side of the road and about 20 people all wearing orange fluorescent jackets walking the lines of the vines. They didn’t mind at all, everyone here says ‘no worries’ all the time.


We tucked into our Pam’s Museli and back on the road. It wasn’t long before we hit the town of Kaikora. This town is world famous for its whale watching. We stopped at one whale-watching place to check it out but there was also swimming with dolphins and we wanted to see if we could do that. The dolphin place was fully booked so we scampered back to the whale-watchers and signed in. We were told all about whales on the short bus ride to the jet-powered catamaran that was purposely built for the job. It was only 10 minutes until the captain of the ship had spotted our first whale and pulled the boat aside. We all ran out so excited to see our first Sperm whale sighting. It was huge and one could see the blubbery layer on its back. It was motionless, I guess shattered from its last feed. Sperm whales hold two records; the deepest dive and the longest dive. So, the first whale we spotted was chilling on the surface catching his breath. The females stay in the warmer waters further north. He was blowing through his blowhole and getting ready for his next dive… One last big breath and he tipped his head down and just the most spectacular sight of a whale fin rising above the surface was presented to us. It was awesome!


We then got the name of that whale because the tail fin is as distinctive as a fingerprint. His name was Tiaki, which is Maori for ‘guardian’. We were told about a sighting where he was defending a younger Sperm whale from an Orca whale. Then, five minutes later of apparent cruising about the co-pilot spotted another rising from the depths with a massive exhale.


We had our second sighting. This male we called Tono, meaning ‘Tony’. (Without a complementary story because Tony has not done anything than bar be a Sperm whale). We were then told that we had sighted more than the average, which as if it could have been impossible, lifted us all even more.


So we headed back to shore and as the tour guide was ‘blowing his own trumpet’ about how lucky we were seeing two, I noticed the co-pilot pointing again. Would you ‘Adam and Eve’ it! We had a third sighting. This one was called Manu, meaning ‘bird’ because of the shape in the centre of its tailfin; it is sort of shaped like a bird’s head and beak. This time I decided not to video the thing and just watch. This time the boat drifted the closest to the whales out of these three sightings. Manu’s tip up and tail out of the water was the laziest of the three; it was in slow motion.


Then we headed back inland and were told about the demographics of the seabed, how it was created and because of ‘stuff’ the water gets incredibly deep so close to the shore. This is why this is a Mecca for marine life. After seeing albatross, gulls and other less interesting birds, when we were about a kilometre away from the shore, in shallow waters, Katherine thought she saw a dolphin jump out of the water to our starboard side. Then I thought I saw one jump out, then within five minutes I would say around 100 dolphins encircled our boat jumping and frolicking with each other.


I’m not being silly. They were everywhere, and there were ones who kept doing the same flip over and over again: 540 degree forward flip and 720 degree barrel roll were my favourites. My camera battery became a flattery after all the whale videos, I got a few thankfully, but they kept coming, the pod was guestimated by our guide at 250. I mean I’m running out of superlatives to use from my vocabulary. It was fan-f*cking-tastic!!


(sigh)

We were dropped off back at the ‘whale way’ station, (which was were we got the tickets but I thought you needed a better story first). Hopped in the van, and on our merry way to Christchurch. Again driving through ridicously spectacular scenery.


We arrived in Christchurch, stayed centrally, hooked up to mains power and cooked up a cracking beef teriyaki. Then we wandered into the centre, saw the Main Square and cathedral. If you approached the cathedral from where we did, it looked like a roundabout. Zzz

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