Whales and Swimming with Dolphins!

3/26/18

We drove to the beach in Kaikoura and had breakfast while watching the sun rise from the beach. After we had checked in on booking dolphin and whale tours, we drove a bit South of Kaikoura to check out the new coastal road. The road had been completely destroyed in the major earthquakes that occurred in Christchurch. As we drove, we saw some big pods of dolphins and lots of seals. We had lunch out on the peninsula, which offers nice mountain views in the distance and seal watching up close. We took a little hike on the peninsula and saw lots and lots of seals, including seal pups. 2 pups swam right up to us and were so cute and playful. They were very curious of us and wanted to sniff our hands, and probably play. When I put my hand out, they rubbed right up against it. We wished we could have stayed longer, but we had to hustle back to Kaikoura for a watch.

Back in Kaikoura, we took a short bus ride to the harbor and boarded a mid-sized catamaran. We sped out to the deep ocean and after 45 or so minutes, we stopped and listened for sperm whales. Based on what they were hearing and knowing the last dive of the whale and how long they stay down (about 45-60 minutes), we sat and waited in a certain spot. After about 10ish minutes of waiting, a sperm whale was seen in the near distance, and we sped out towards it. We sat for quite a while watching it breathe. We were pretty close to it. Eventually it dove, and we saw it raise its tail fluke. The guides told us the name was Tutu, and it was one of the resident males in the area.

As we were turning to go home, the guides were keeping their eyes open for other spouts as a blue whale had recently been seen in the area. Not too long into the ride back, there was a very excited shout from the guide, and we could see high plumes of spout in the distance. We rushed to it, and were super lucky to see a blue whale (the world's largest animal). We got to see it take a few breaths, in which its spout went super high, and then saw it do a tail fluke dive. So in a short period we had seen the largest toothed animal in the world (sperm whale) and the largest animal in the world (blue whale)

On the way home dusky dolphins dove and flipped and followed us for a while. They're so playful and such big jumpers. We also some albatross on the trip. Super awesome trip!

We had dinner by the beach as the sun set, and then camped on the beach

3/27/18

Woke up to sunrise on the beach. We spent the morning in the library doing some work that needed to be done, then we went on a dolphin swim tour. We donned full wetsuits, and we swam 5 times for an extended period with them! So Amazing! It was mostly dusky dolphins, but also some common dolphins. They are so playful and curious. They like to make eye contact with you, and you can spin around in the water maintaining eye contact as they swim around you. Also, if you make noise or sing or something like that, they like to come check you out. I couldn't believe how many of them there were and how curious and playful they were.

After swimming, we tootled around watching the dolphins from above. The dusky dolphins did crazy spins and flips and the common dolphins did huge jumps and moved so fast. There were literally hundreds. It felt like the wildebeest/zebra herds in Africa during the great migration. The dolphins loved to follow the boat and swim right under the bow.

We had fish and chips for late afternoon snack, and then drove to Blenheim where we had an ice cream cone and then on to St. Arnaud where we camped