We visited two New Zealand fur seal colonies and then had a go at swimming with the seals. On land, you have to be careful not to get between them and the water but in the water they are very playful...swimming right up to you and then rolling away. The fur seal used to be a threatened species but its population is growing now. We found 'Seal Swim Kaikoura' to be a better choice than dolphins as the seals play with you and the dolphins move much faster so you are jumping in and out of the boat chasing them about the ocean. 
They didn't have child sized thick wet suits so here is Hannah encased to TWO thin wetsuits. Poor kid, she could barely move. It was really really cold but we manged to stay in for 1 1/2 hours cavorting with the seals. There was also this really neat zooplankton in the water that looked like single cell cubes of jelly around 1/2 cm each with a black dot of a nuceus that was floating all around. Apparently it is this vast quantity of plankton that makes Kaikoura such a marine paradise as there are North and South currents that meet in a deep ravine that is close to shore.
Next stop - whale watching..... with 'Whale Watch Kaikoura'
Here's Hannah and I poised beside the toliets, prostrate from sea sickness on the never ending ride out to see the whales. She eventually threw up and felt better but I was having dreams of bribing the captain to take us back...and after taking A LOT of motion sickness meds
No Whales! We did spot a Royal Albatross though
Moby Dick ahoy! At last we see a sperm whale surface, take some breaths and then dive down again. The sperm whale has the square head that stores an waxy/oily like substance - spermaceti oil (hence the name) and this helps them dive and surface. And they can dive for up to an hour and up to 2500 m to get their main food source - giant squid. They have the largest brain of any mammal. We were apparently quite lucky as for the next three days there were no whales anywhere near shore!
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