Seafood and Whales

Seafood and Whales

We are having so many adventures that it's hard to keep you up to date. We left Picton this morning and drove 2 hours down the coast to Kaikoura. There's a lot of wild Pacific shoreline on the way, with beautiful black sand beaches so wild that not only is no one on them, there also appear to be no structure except the rr line for miles around. We arrived early enough in this seaside town to check into yet another charming B&B, Nikau Lodge. True to their name, a Nikau palm stands right outside our window.

After dropping off our luggage, we walked down to the waterfront and the Kaikoura Whale Watch Adventure office. We arrived early enough to eat our ziplock salad (child of hanging salad--see Abel Tasman entry if you missed that one) on their deck and watch a movie about whales. The many prominent warnings about rough seas and the potential for seasickness were a little dating, but we boarded the bus with my supply of candied ginger and went out to the marina south of town. Definitely the right call. We were on a jet engine hydrofoil catamaran which got us out to whale-watching grounds so quickly that we saw our first sperm whale about 30 minutes after casting off. Sperm are the largest of the toothed whales. They can dive to 6000 feet and only need to breathe every 2 hours. When they surface, they need about 10 minutes to re-oxygenate. They don't porpoise when they dive like other whales we've seen, but they do arch and flip their flukes straight up in the air. Gerlinde had never seen whales in the wild before, so we were really happy we got to see 4 of them, all sperm whales. Really exciting stuff. We also saw a bunch of dusky dolphins and, much to my great delight, 3 kinds of albatross--the royal, the shy mollymauk, and one so rare it's not even in my bird book, the wanderer (we saw the juvenile). We also saw a Cape Pigeon, which has very distinctive and strikingly patterned black and white plumage, and what one of the crew members said was a sooty petrel, although I can't find that one in my bird book, either. All thoroughly worth the queasiness of the trip. Mike promises he has great photos.

Our last day in Picton, yesterday, gave us the best weather we'd seen there since the day we arrived on the ferry from Wellington. Mike appreciated that because he was on a rib boat about 8:30 am for his 1-1/2 hour trip to the Mikhail Lermontov wreck dive site. He came back really excited about the dive and everything he had seen. He also came back with an enormous crayfish that the dive master had caught the day before. Mike got it because our B&B hostess, Glennys, picked him up at the marina when they got back. Her husband, Gary, is the dive master's accountant and also, evidently a good friend. So, the crayfish was for Gary.

The rest of us spent the day sailing in the Sounds with Gary, on his boat. In appreciation for his offer to take us out, Peter had volunteered the day before to make one of his vast salads for all of us for dinner. So Gary's crayfish was added to the menu. It was delicious. It's also likely to be the only one we'll eat. Kaikoura claims to be the world's crayfish capital. Half a crayfish here costs about $48.

The sailing was terrific. Definitely an easier way to get around than kayaking. We motored to the Bay of Many Coves where we moored and ate the lunch Gary asked that we bring in "payment" for the day's sail. Then we put up the sails and came back under wind power. Winds were fickle, more in strength than direction, but we did bury a rail once or twice. This was Gerlinde's first experience sailing, a great introduction.

As you've probably gathered, we really bonded with Gary and Glennys. This would be an evev longer blog if I listed all the things they did for us during our stay. Gary taking us out on his boat and Glennys letting us take over her kitchen to make dinner had the biggest wow factor, but all of it was wonderful. Saying goodbye this morning was really hard. We hope they will come to Annapolis so we can get Gary out sailing on the Chesapeake.

Fresh as the crayfish was, it wasn't the freshest seafood we had in the Marlborough area. Our first day of kayaking on the Sounds, the 3rd day of our Queen Charlotte Track adventure, we kayaked to a green lip mussel farm. The mussels grow on long ropes that hang from large floats. The ropes are winched up for harvest, destroying the 1st meter of mussels. Kayak guides know this and go to grab mussels from that first bit. It is a difficult task. The ropes are really heavy. Even with our 3 kayaks rafted together, our guide Luke was only able to get 3 mussels. He had brought a pot to cook them in. 20 minutes after they came out of the water, we were eating them on the beach. Amazing.