> Today I found out where to go to see whales! Around here, I mean, not by taking a trip to some typical whale-seeing part of the country. (Some people may remember me saying this before, but I'm desperately unlucky when it comes to seeing whales. I always seem to be there on the wrong day, or at the wrong time, or to be looking in the wrong direction.)
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> Anyway, this morning I was talking to a guy at Coastguard who also works on one of the tourist whale-watching boats, and he TOLD ME WHERE TO GO TO ALMOST ALWAYS SEE WHALES. So I'm going to go there. He said that yesterday they got into a school of about 1000 dolphins there. They've had plenty of whales of various species around there all summer.
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> Annoyingly, I spent all day today at Coastguard, and I'm on for a half day tomorrow, which doesn't leave me enough of the weekend to sail out on my own boat to THE PLACE WHERE YOU ALMOST ALWAYS SEE WHALES. I'm seriously thinking about faking a sick day on Monday, though.
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> Brunnen-"determined to see whales"G

What kinds of whales are typical around NZ? Up in Puget Sound one year, we took one of those one-day whale-watching cruises. It was awesome. There were dolphins (or porpoises?) swimming, jumping, diving, and playing just in front of the boat, and, later, we got very close to a couple pods of orcas.

We met another group in motorized inflatable rafts. They got *really* close--we watched some of them get to touch the whales. That would enormously cool, but nerve-wracking, I think.

gab"Glad he was in a covered boat"by