Surf's up!

March has been fairly quiet with no research, so not all that much to report since the last post. Weather has continued to be reasonable, though with a few more autumnal days creeping in, and a few dustings of snow on the mountains. Had my birthday last week, enjoyed the sun and the hot tub, made some good chocolate brownie cake and enjoyed the company of the good friends I’ve made here in Kaikoura.

Still working in the bakery, and got a few more hours last week so a bit of extra money coming in which is always good. I’ve now been trained to use the till and make coffees and milkshakes, so I can help out the front and am not always stuck in the kitchen washing dishes!

Silke, a former cleaner at the Dusky Lodge, and I decided we wanted to try surfing so we booked ourselves a lesson. Originally meant to go out on Paddy’s day but the weather was pretty awful and Dave, the surf instructor, said we should hold out for the better weather the following day. So after enjoying a good night out in the Strawberry Tree we went out yesterday to a surf spot about 10 minutes north of Kaikoura for a lesson with two others. After getting our wetsuits on and doing a few stretches Dave gave us a quick on land lesson on how to stand up and then we got into the water. Paddling onto the wave is quite tricky so Dave pushed us on to each wave. We rode the first on our bellies just to get a feel for the wave and the speed, then the next one we tried to stand up. Everyone managed to managed to wobble their way to some kind of standing position and we enjoyed around two hours in the water. Paddling out is pretty tiring when you’re not used to it and though we were all exhausted by the end I think we all wanted to do more. It was great fun and definitely something I would like to try again. With so many surfers around Kaikoura hopefully I’ll get a chance to borrow a board and give it another go!

I think that’s all for now, a couple more weeks and we should be getting back into the research, and definitely in to autumn.

Birds eye view

Had a good few days since the last post, despite having to say goodbye to a few people. Saana, one of the PhD student was preparing to leave and had lots to do, so no research over this last week really, though she did run a little workshop for us on using Access.

Bonfire on the beach

Rachael, a cleaner at the Dusky Lodge had her last day in Kaikoura on Thursday. The weather was beautiful so we went down to the beach near South Bay and had a swim, then a BBQ by the pool at Dusky and later in the evening a bonfire on the beach.

Saturday morning I started work at the Pot Belly Bakery in town. Pretty easy work, just washing dishes, wiping tables, sweeping up etc at the moment and I’ll probably gradually get trained on other things. Only four hours on Saturdays and Sundays but it means a bit of extra money coming in which I can hopefully save whilst I’m not paying for my accommodation. Saturday evening was the last night for Saana and one of the volunteers, Gemma, so we had a BBQ up at the volunteer house with lots of food including freshly caught fish courtesy of Manuel, the other PhD student.

Humpback whale and dusky dolphins

Had a strange start to Sunday morning, being woken by a phone call from Manuel telling me there was a tsunami coming (as a result of the Chile earthquake) and just to let me know he had been evacuated from the field station… a little hard to comprehend first thing in the morning after a late night! Anyway, the tsunami didn’t amount to much although no boats went out for the rest of the day. I went to work at the bakery again and afterwards met a couple of friends and headed out to the aero club to see if we could get a flight with Adam, one of the pilots who had offered to take us up for a seriously discounted price. We went up around 2.30pm and the weather was beautiful. We quickly found lots of dusky dolphins and a humpback whale which is the first one I’ve ever seen! We then headed around 18 miles offshore to find sperm whales. We spotted to quite close together at the surface and Adam did some figure eights between them so we could get a good look from both sides of the plane. It was very cool to see them from the air, a different perspective from the boat, and it allows you to see the whole body and get a much better impression of the size of them. We turned back to land after about a half hour flight and on the way Adam did a few sharp banks and, after announcing ‘hold on to your cameras’, a zero g drop which was great fun!

Sperm whale

That’s about it for now, into March already… how time flies!

Catch up

Been a while since my last blog post, sorry. Had a few days in a row where I didn't get out on the boat because of weather or scheduling. Also tried and failed to get on a Whale Watch trip on the 13th, they were fully booked in the morning then the wind picked up in the afternoon and they cancelled some trips. These are the days of cetacean research that can get quite frustrating and require some patience.

Had a good trip out on the boat on the 14th. We tracked the easily recognisable Tiaki (has a very prominent dorsal fin) for a few dives and observed some very loud surface clikcing with easily audible echoes from the canyon walls. 15th no boat again, rained all day, but back out on the 16th and a good trip on the 17th which included a few dusky dolphins and a very fleeting glimpse of one or two beaked whales. They are incredibly shy animals so impossible to get any where near them with the boat.

On the 18th, after a quick job 'interview' at a local bakery, I managed to get a seat on Wawahia, on of the Whale Watch boats and spotted Tiaki, becoming a regular sighting at the moment. Afterwards at the volunteer house I databased the backlog of data collected on the Whale Watch trips over the past few weeks.

Since the 19th we have had beautiful sunshine, getting pretty hot at times. On the 20th, after being offered a weekend job at the bakery I went out on the boat. We had to go quite far offshore to find them and they seemed to be shallow diving as most submerged without showing their tail flukes. In the evening Dusky Lodge was fully booked so there was little point in me sitting on reception. I was allowed the evening off and went to the small local cinema to see The Lovely Bones, which I really enjoyed.

The beach at meatworks

Had an early morning on the boat on the 21st, which was unfortunately cut a little short when a big fog bank started rolling in. In the afternoon Elena, one of the volunteers who left on the 22nd, organised a bit of a picnic/BBQ on the beach at a local surf spot and I enjoyed the sunshine and took some pictures.

Surfers at meatworks

Yesterday we had more great weather so I went out to the end of the peninsula with a few people. We wanted to snorkel with the seals but the swell was up a bit and apparently the viz wasn't too good so we just walked out onto the rocks, explored the rock pools and collected a few paua shells.

More whales!

Have had a couple more days of good weather. Had a beautiful day on the boat on the 5th, tracked a whale for four surfacings including two paired with another animal. We then found a sleepy whale which stayed at the surface for ~40mins, fluked up then breached four times followed by what must have been around 30 lob tails.

The following day was also sunny but we didn't have a skipper for the boat so I went to South Bay for a snorkel with a couple of friends. There was loads of life to see, lots of kelp and algae with small fish amongst it.

The research project has been allowed to have one free seat on a Whale Watch boat each day, so Sunday I went to try and get on a trip. As we don't pay we can only get a seat at the last minute if the trip isn't full, or someone hasn't checked in. I managed to get on the boat Tohora at about 1pm and although the sea was pretty choppy we managed to see four whales. These trips are a good opportunity to collect additional data and photo-ID for the project so it was a good trip. We came back to South Bay via Barney's Rock where there were lots of fur seals, including some pups who appeared to still be learning to swim.

Seals at Barney's Rock

Couldn't get out on the boat yesterday as it had to go for a 200hr engine check but got out today and tracked a couple of whales quite far offshore, including one that had a large scar across the right side of his head possibly from a ship strike of some sort.

Cetacean Soup!

Weather has been pretty good for the last few days so have managed to get out on the boat a couple of times and enjoy Kaikoura. Was dropped in South Bay with some friends from Dusky Lodge the other day and we walked back to Kaikoura around the peninsula, enjoying the views and the sunshine.

Had some really good days on the boat too, lots of sperm whales around which is good although sometimes making it tricky to track the same one for consecutive dives. We’ve seen some interesting behaviour too, such as two whales surfacing side by side, a surfacing tail first and today two closely surfacing whales clicking at each other head to head underwater. Also got a glimpse of more orca, saw some tall dorsal fins from a distance so almost definitely males. Whilst returning to South Bay today we encountered a group of dusky dolphins seeming mostly to be mother and calf pairs, including some very small, very cute, young ones!

Dusky dolphins

Orca!

Had an amazing day yesterday. The morning started off pretty foggy but Manuel, Kate and I went out on the boat. On the passage out to find a sperm whale I spotted a few seals playing in the water, and around 20 dusky dolphins swam past the boat perhaps moving away from some orca that had been spotted that morning north of the peninsula. We managed to find Tiaki, the same sperm whale we tracked a few days ago and stuck with him for six or seven dives. We got some really interesting observations including some clicking at the surface, and most of his dives were over a sea mount 874m deep with the surrounding canyon around 1000m.

Sperm whale fluke sequence

Heading back to South Bay the low cloud lifted and the sun came out. The orca from the morning were reported to be on the south side of the peninsula, close to South Bay so we kept an eye out and managed to spot a few! One of the whale watching boats moved in for a look and two orca (a youngish female and a juvenile, I think) checked out their boat before heading over to us. They seemed pretty curious and came right up to the back of the boat, close enough to touch and I managed to get some good pictures. There also appeared to be another mother and calf, and another adult female around which we spotted but they didn’t come so close. That’s the first time I’ve seen them in the wild and they were really awesome to see!

Sperm Spot!

Managed to get a bit more of a start on the research in the past few days. Had a little training in using PAMGUARD, the acoustic software we use linked to the hydrophone. Also managed to get up to the land station on the peninusla, and spotted a few sperm whales and took some pictures.

South Bay, on the south side of the Kaikoura peninsula.

Yesterday I got my first trip out on Titi, our research boat. We found a sperm whale and followed it for four surfacings. Whilst heading out from our launch in South Bay we spotted a few NZ fur seals in the water, were joined by a lovely wandering albatross, and saw a shark fin break the surface.

Wandering Albatross