Our family's life in New Zealand
We were driving to Kaikoura for church Sunday morning when suddenly one of the boys exclaimed, “There’s a whale!” Sure enough, just a few hundred meters offshore was a whale, apparently feeding on the surface in the middle of a small pod of dolphins! There was a fishing boat close by; apparently there was a large school of fish there. Of course, we stopped to watch–you don’t see a whale very often. What a special experience!
The children and I had the privilege yesterday to take a tour with Whale Watch. There is no way we could afford the tickets normally, but we happen to know a lady who works there. She sent me a note recently, saying that they were taking the Year 4 classes from Kaikoura on a tour, which they do annually, and had extra space. She thought of us, since she knows we homeschool, and asked if we’d like to go. Would we! You should have heard the excitement here! The two youngest were not able to go, but a dear friend in Kaikoura offered to keep them for me so I could go along.
Thursday morning was the day of the tour. We got up early and ate our breakfast on the way to Kaikoura (a one-hour trip) as we watched the sun rise over the hills and enjoyed the snow on the mountains. When we got down to the coast, we noticed high waves. We dropped off the little boys and went to the Whaleway Station–to be met with the news that sailing had been canceled for the day due to the high waves! What a disappointment. So, we picked up the little boys again, went to a secondhand shop, and came home to do school.
The trip had been rescheduled for Friday, so yesterday morning we got up early again, again ate our breakfast while we enjoyed the early morning beauty, and again dropped off the little boys. The waves were still high, but not as high as the previous morning, so we got to go on our tour.
We were informed, soon after we got underway, that a whale had been spotted not too far away. He had just sounded (gone under) and would surface to breathe again in about 40 minutes. The primary whale in Kaikoura waters, by the way, is adolescent male sperm whales. They like the deep water in the trench that comes close in to land here. They can dive 3 km deep, and stay down for about 40 minutes at a time. While we waited for that whale to come back up, we went to Goose Bay, where the continental shelf comes within 500 meters of the shore for a special treat: a pod of dolphins was feeding there! Normally, in the winter, the dolphins are in the Marlborough Sounds, so they would not usually be seen on a Whale Watch tour right now. There were probably around 200 Dusky Dolphins, and we got to be right in the middle of the pod for 15-20 minutes! That was fascinating! They leaped out of the water, spun in a half circle, and fell back in with a splash. They frequently slapped the water with their tail, scaring fish so they could feed on them. I was intrigued to see that they often swam in pairs, two dolphins side-by-side. We’ve seen them often from the highway, but it’s much better out at sea, right in among them.
The mountains were so beautiful! 
Soon it was time to head over to see the whale. We all went back in the cabin and sat down. As we were traveling, I happened to see, out the window, a spout off to our right! After I saw it a second time, I started pointing it out to people around me, and after the third we were able to catch the attention of the Whale Watch crew–they hadn’t seen it! They immediately altered course and went that direction, but just as we got there the whale sounded. So, we turned and went back toward the other one–but as we got there that one sounded, as well! What a disappointment. So, we slowly moved around, searching for another whale, and they turned the engines off at one point so they could listen with the hydrophone to try to locate a whale. After awhile they did find one, and we got to watch it breathe on the surface for several minutes. Then, the whale waved his tail at us and was gone. What a special experience!
At last–a whale!
There he goes!
After we picked up the little boys and visited for a while with our friend, we headed for home. We stopped along the coast on our way home and had a picnic, and explored the rocks for awhile–it was too beautiful a day to just go home immediately!
A live sponge. Usually we find them dead, washed up on shore.
A sea anemone.
He enjoyed investigating the anemone!
We had a wonderful experience this morning on our way to church–so great that we decided it would be all right to be a few minutes late for church to enjoy it! As we were driving along the coast, I suddenly noticed, not too far offshore, a small cloud of mist shooting up! A whale! We immediately pulled off and watched for awhile. A couple of times a minute, the whale spouted, and we could see a bit of its back and occasionally some of its tail as it went back under. There was a crowd of seagulls in the area where the whale was, so apparently there was a shoal of fish there, too. We watched for several minutes, then started on our way, but just around the next curve we saw our friends from Cheviot who also go to Kaikoura to our church, pulled off and also watching. We pulled off again beside them and all watched for awhile. What a special experience! We didn’t get any pictures, because it was just far enough offshore that it would have been very hard to pick up with the camera; this picture is from when we went on a WhaleWatch trip three years ago and shows what we saw this morning.
Monkey see, monkey do? This was yesterday.
