Whale-watching in Kaikoura

Breakfast arrived in our room at 08:00, unfortunately it was not warm enough to eat outside on the decking.  After breakfast we went out side and a voice from the balcony above us yelled "I've just seen a whale in the bay".  It was Marilyn from Vancouver, who claimed to be an expert in such things.  Ivo, our host, took pains to tel that it was a "Whale rock" that appears as the tide goes down and disappears when the tide rises!That didnt do her street cred much food!
As she was going on the same trip as us, we gave her a lift to the "Whaleway station" where we were relieved to discover that the weather forecast was calm and the excursion was on.  We wathced the 30-minute promotional video followed by the inevitable safety briefing. A bus took us the shor trip to the jetty, where we boarded the catamaran.
Once onboard, we were told to stay seated, since the craft could do up to 40 knots, which it did, giving us an exhilataring ride out into the bay.  We headed out to where a whale had been spotted, only to see its fluke disappearing just as we drew near.  No worries we were told, the whales spend 10 minutes on the surface oxygenating and then dive for 45 minutes, so with luck we shoudlo see "Tutu" when he3 resurfaced.
We went in search of "Tiaki" their other regular inhabitant, the captain turned off the engines and placed a hydrophone into the water to listen for the sonar click that whales emit when diving.  When they are about to surface, the click disappear anad the whales emit higher frequency pulses, which cannot be detected, so silence means one of two things - lost the whale or its coming up"!

Our search was successful and we found a whale on the surface, blowing away.

A few minutes later our guide, who understood whale body-language, said "watch out, he is about to dive".  True enough in a few moments the tail fluke appeared and then slowly sank into the sea.

A very successful trip was concluded with a visit to a fur seal colony.
After that, we returned to the car and drove to seal point in Kaikoura for a "coastal promenade" which commenced with a climb of about 100 metres, but did give some great views of the surroundings!
In the evening we had the mandatory crayfish meal at the green dolphin restaurant, before returning to our accommodation.  we calculated that we would need to get a few extra litres of petrol to get us all the way to Christchurch.