Day 65: Kaikoura - Christchurch

Whale Watch Kaikoura Catamaran
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Breakfast served on the balcony in our room, having been upgraded – another spectacular view of the sea and the mountains. Today’s big event is whale watching a kilometre off the coastline where the continental shelf abruptly ends creating an underwater cliff where the depth plunges from under 100m to over 700m before sloping down further out to well over 1km. This phenomenon runs along the entire east coastline of New Zealand but is closest to land here at the Kaikoura Peninsular, where the Kaikoura and Hikurangi trenches make up part of the ‘Whale Highway’ running from the Antarctic up to Japan.

Plasma display (of a sperm whales head)
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Today we are looking for male sperm whales, many of which reside here all year with many others passing through. At different times of the year a variety of other whales are spotted, but today the likely sighting is the sperm. The boat we take is around 18m long and accommodates around 50 passengers comfortably. Seated for speed runs to find whales (the catamaran hits 25knots / 45km which is fast on the waves – quite thrilling actually), and standing around the deck or on top whilst running slower or stopped and watching.

A whale of a time!

Seal
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The company has a 98% success rate in spotting whales on their tours and offers a money back guarantee to back that up, so we’re pretty confident as we head out. As the second tour out of the day we have the advantage of knowing where the first outing found our target and once we’re in the vicinity the captain can be seen dipping the hydrophone off the port and starboard bows to try and get a bearing on the whales. After a few stops and soundings (they are moving after all) we pull up around 60m from one surface feeding and taking on air before diving. Sperm whales are the largest toothed whale (in fact toothed animal) and the deepest diving of any whale, facilitated by their ability to take enough oxygen whilst on the surface to sustain them for 45-50 min dives. Obviously this length of dive makes catching them whilst their up kind of important if you don’t want to be waiting a long time! After around 10 minutes alongside he’s had enough and dives, doing the stereotypical breaching, arching and tail raising before slinking away beneath the waves. Awesome to see so close.

Money shot
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No sooner had he disappeared and we were all hurried back to our seats as the third outing of the day had found another whale which was still on the surface 5 minutes away. Speed run over there, obviously slowing down nearby to (a) avoid spooking the whale and (b) avoid colliding with the other boat. This whale hung around on the surface for another 5+ minutes after our arrival, plenty of time for some more surface photos (in context the whale is about the same length as our boat, only the visible part is like an iceberg in the sense of you only see 10% of it above the waterline). Then it was this guy’s turn to submerge and provide something for the numerous clicking cameras to capture. Pretty pleased with our efforts, a lot better than those I took of whales in Alaska.

Diving
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In between sightings the guide on-onboard taught us about whales in general and the sperm whale in particular, with the use of some funky animations on a large plasma TV. Apparently they’re called sperm whales as they’re head contains 2.5 tonnes of oil which initial discovers (hunters) mistakenly believed was sperm and the name stuck. Multiple theories abound as to what the oil is for (buoyancy, oxygen aid, sonar enhancing) but nobody knows. Final fact of the day is that being toothed these whales eat fish and squid as well as krill, including the giant squid found at depths only the Sperm whale hunts in (the giant squid being the rarest squid known after the rare brown).

More whale pics
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Having filled our whale quota our captain takes us to see a seal colony up close around a rocky outcrop in the shallower waters closer to shore, many of these friendly critters swimming as you’d imagine dolphins bobbing along whilst others sunbathed. Great trip.

Quick game of mini golf and a 3 hour train ride down the sunny east coast to Christchurch.