Getting Up-Close to the Ocean’s Giants with Whale Watch Kaikoura

Dusky dolphin surprise

The vessel stops and the doors open indicating it is safe to stand and walk around the viewing areas. We have plenty of options with an open-top viewing area, open front, sides and back (all boating terms have been thrown out of the window for all you none-sailors out there to understand, i.e. we don’t know the name of them ourselves and Robin has the excuse that he “doesn’t know them in English”). Anyway, heaps of viewing areas are perfect for viewing heaps of dusky dolphins that have just started splashing around our boat! Dusky dolphins are the most common dolphin seen in Kaikoura, often mingling in pods of 100-1000! We certainly have quite a large number here moving quickly, emerging from the water often for a quick photo-op.

Let’s go see some whales!

We get about 5-10 minutes with the dolphins before we are reminded that we’re on a whale watching cruise so let’s go see some whales!!

Already buzzing about our first wildlife sighting, it’s all chatter inside the Tohora. The narrator announces that we are going to be stopping the boat again, this time to use a sound wave detector to see if and where the sperm whales are in the area. Although almost all the world’s species of whale have been sighted in Kaikoura’s waters, the sperm whale is most commonly seen and, more special, they are here all year round in Kaikoura. As we saw on the documentary and explained by the narrator, sperm whales use sound waves (clicks) created by the spermaceti oil in their heads to communicate with other whales and stun their prey. That’s why the watch keeper and the captain are now going to use a mechanism to detect these sound waves. Meanwhile, we detect magnificent albatross, some of the largest species of seabird in the world, with our cameras!

Scouting for whales and just enjoying the ride

Sperm whale encounter

A whale has been tracked! We get back in our seats and speed off to its possible location. A woman on the row of seats outside screams: “It’s there!” pointing to a mass of spray blowing up into the sky. Everyone goes a bit nuts, not waiting for the narrator to say it is safe, and fumbling out of their seats to take photos.

The captain places the boat right alongside the sperm whale now clearly in sight, its huge brown body slowly emerging to the water’s surface to get oxygen.

The sperm whale stays up for around 10 minutes, giving us passengers a real opportunity to watch, film, photograph or however we want to experience this. Without ever seeing its full body at the same time, it’s hard to comprehend the size of this thing. All we can see is that its dorsal fin is tiny in comparison to its gargantuan back.

The magical diving moment

“Get your cameras ready, he’s about to dive,” the narrator calls. “1… 2… 3!” With that, the huge tail slowly lifts into the air creating a waterfall from its tail along with it. With the mountains in the background and the fluke of the whale in the air, it is the most picture-perfect moment. The on-board photographer, Hayley Baxter, makes sure to capture this moment for everyone. You can see her photos of the whale gracing this very blog post.

Once the ocean giant has dived into the deep, going down to feed for about 45 minutes, it leaves a perfectly circular patch of water behind. This isolated patch is smooth like glass in comparison to the surrounding ripples of the ocean.