Whale watching … and more

We thought that our last day in the RV in Kaikoura … we should do a whale watching tour.  We booked the tour the day before and were told that we didn't have to pay until the next day to see if 1. They were still doing the tour or 2. depending on the sea conditions, if we wanted to do the tour.

We arrived and saw that they were doing the tour, and there was a chance of sea sickness due to the 10-15 ft swells.  Oh great … here comes the motion sickness.  At the gift shop, they actually had a herbal pill that I took and then was given instructions to go and drink some ginger tea, try to eat some ginger cookies if I wanted and buy some peppermint candies.  I did it all … to make sure that I didn't get sick.  After discussing it with JC, he decided we were ALL going to do it.  

We boarded the bus, took a 10 minute ride to the pier and got on our way.  

This is a picture of the boat we were on

This is actually a picture of a grey whale.  He had taken his final breath and would be underwater for the next 50 minutes.  So we moved on to ...

Great views of New Zealand and some birds

and some Orca's.  

So, in the pecking order of this area, when the Orca's are there, they are number 1.  The grey whale is number 2 and then comes everyone else.
The Orca's aren't always around and they just happened to be there on this day. Around the time this picture was taken, Jonathan had escused himself to sit inside the boat.  (This was NOT a good time for him) 

A male and a female

 

Because the Orca's were in town, the Dolphins were swimming away.  It was actually one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen!  They were everywhere!  They swam with another boat that was out there, and then they started to swim with us.  It was really one of the coolest things I've seen in nature!

They day was a success!  We saw 2 grey whales, a pod of Orca's, a huge amount of dolphins, a couple of seals, and some birds.  Unforntately, Jonathan's breakfast made an encore appearance on the boat, and then again on the bus ride back to the start.  Gabby felt sick, but never really got sick.  I only felt bad the last 10 minutes of the boat ride and Hannah … my dear sweet Hannah … she was perfect.  She didn't feel sick once and really wondered what all the fuss was about!