Whale, dolphin and seal watching

Trip Start Feb 03, 2008
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25
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Trip End Apr 14, 2008


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Where I stayed
Dolphins Lodge
(Kaikoura hotels)

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Saturday, March 29, 2008

Well today I went on a boat and watched sperm whales, dolphins and seals.  Sounds boring??  Well thats what I thought at first but some people I met at the cricket last week had convinced me that I should really pay the $130 (roughly 50 quid) and go on the boat.  OK, so I thought I'd give it a go as it wasn't the kind of thing you would normally catch me doing.  It was awesome from start to finish and I know the pictures will particularly make my sister Emma very jealous as she would have loved it!  But anyway you can't win em all Em as you are probably too busy cruising around the streets of the West Midlands in your swanky new car to care too much at the moment!
Anyway I went to the whale watching centre at about midday, which wasn't too far away from the lovely little hostel that I was staying in.  The only trouble was the weather, which was looking quite gloomy for the first time in 3 weeks - so I guess I can't complain too much, after all it is autumn here now -
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 !  The only problem was that the sea conditions were apparently deteriorating and they may have to cancel the trip and if they didn't cancel the trip there was a risk that sick bags may have to be used!  Anyway it all turned out to be quite a lot of scare mongering as the sea wasn't too bad and in fact it was actually quite good fun as the catamaran rode some pretty heavy waves.  Now the whale watching centre is really well organised as they run about 10, 3-hour trips a day and they have a plane and a helicopter that help the boat crews spot whales and dolphins in the water.  The buzz of excitement in the crew when they heard from the plane was a bit cheesy though.  But when we got to the whales and dolphins I could understand why they got so excited.  Anyway we found 3 sperm whales, hundreds of dolphins and a colony of seals on the rocks, so it was a successful trip as they said that they cannot always guarantee that you will see anything.  As you can see from the pictures, I got some pretty good ones of the whales diving and of the dolphins jumping.  The dolphins were fantastic, they seem to play up to the fact that the boats are there and they swim right under the boat and jump really close to you.  It was really good to be honest and I was a bit surprised by how much I actually enjoyed the whole thing.  So all in all well worth the 50 quid.  Check out the videos I've attached as you can see my attempts at catching the dolphins jumping - not always successful as you will see!
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