The next day we left Christchurch and headed north to Kaikoura. I had been there a couple of times before, but had never done a whale watch. Kaikoura is well known as a great place to see whales, so we were all very excited. Before our cruise we stopped at Point Kean, where there is a fur seal colony that you can find laying out on the rocks by the ocean. Sure enough, we saw several seals enjoying the sun and some were even up on the boardwalk by the car park. We got pretty close to them and could take some pictures before it was time to get lunch at Cooper’s Catch, a fish and chips shop, and head to the “whaleway” station for our cruise.
At the whale watch, we watched a briefing video about safety and the types of whales found in the area. Then, we went down to the marina and got on our boat. We sat inside for the most part while the boat was moving because it can go and stop pretty fast, so you can easily get thrown around. We went out into the ocean and then stopped for everyone to go outside and look for signs of whales. The skipper used an instrument that kind of looked like a long extended funnel to listen underwater for whale sounds.
Pretty quickly one of the crew saw a spout of water in the distance, so the skipper drove the boat over and we got to watch the whale while it was breathing at the surface. The whales come up and will breathe and blow water up for 5-10 minutes and then dive back down. So, after watching for a few minutes, the crew was able to see the whale’s body language and tell us when it was about to dive, which is when their tail will come up and make a great photo. It was so cool to watch since their movement looks like it’s in slow motion, and this was something we’d never seen before.
Then, we drove off to another location and looked out for more whales for the rest of the two hours. We ended up seeing three Sperm whales and a Humpback whale. There were reports from other boats that there was a Southern Right whale, which is pretty rare, but when we went over there we didn’t see anything. We did see more fur seals as we went back to the marina, and the whale watch was still an amazing experience.
After getting some ice cream for an afternoon snack, we headed north to Picton, where we would be catching the ferry to the North Island the next morning.
Hammond Adventures 