Leviathan

So here's what a sperm whale looks like, as seen from the heaving deck of a little tiny boat off the coast of Kaikoura: a long lumpy row of wet brown crags, a lot like those unsubstantiated photos of the Loch Ness Monster that turn up in the Weekly World News from time to time, throwing great jets of steam into the air every few seconds before they dive.

Which is about what I'd expected to see, of course, although there's always the little voice in the back of my head wondering if I'll see one raise its enormous head out of the water, bear down and attack the boat. Years of reading Moby-Dick and watching Pinocchio will do that to you. Besides, I grew up watching humpback whales, which travel in groups, are curious about boats, wave their flippers, jump out of the water and generally are extremely entertaining to watch. Sperm whales keep to themselves, ignore boats, hang about breathing, and dive.

That's about it.

What's really impressive about the whale watch experience, though (apart from the albatrosses, which are really enormous, and the cape petrels, which are not, but win points for having flown in from Antarctica) is the whale watch experience itself. Up until about seven years ago, Kaikoura was this sleepy little town, suffering job losses and and economic downturns along with the rest of New Zealand. Someone got the bright idea to start a whale-watching business, and discovered that Kaikoura was about the only place in the world where you can see sperm whales on a regular basis from land.

And now the whole town seems to revolve around the business — people you meet on the street talk about the weather, about when the whale watching boats are able to go out, about how many people saw whales on their last trip. But it's not a tourist trap (I'm thinking about my own town of Plymouth here) where you get the idea that a few people are getting tremendously wealthy while most of the rest are sitting around in traffic waiting for the tourists to go home. Whale Watch Kaikoura is set up as a kind of charity, so everyone in town more or less has a stake in the enterprise. And they really pull out all the stops — our guide aboard the boat was as knowledgeable about whales as anyone I'd ever met, and the whole crew did everything possible to make sure we were as safe and comfortable as anyone in a little boat in a pitching ocean could be.

Which is much more safe and comfortable than I felt on the car ride back to Christchurch. But that's a story for another day.