Boat mechanic Kay

Walked to seal colony this morning. On the way tried to book kayaking trip but they were closed and then found Albatross Encounter trip so signed up for that instead. Thought we had plenty of time to walk from there to seals, back to campsite for sea sickness tablet and back to office for albatross trip. Spent a bit too long viewing NZ fur seals (what a surprise) so had a bit of a route march back to campsite - ran out of time and had to take car back down to trip office - oooopsie!

Still at least we managed to get sea sickness tablet so sea was of course only just above mill pond level. Although one poor bloke who didn't take tablet was ill!

Despite that we had fantastic trip, they gave us list of things we saw which I shall now type in as I shall lose the list!
Dusky dolphin, NZ fur seal, blue penguin, wandering albatross, antipodean albatross, royal albatross, gannet, black backed/black billed/red billed gulls, White/black fronted tern, pied/spotted/little shags, arctic skua, bullers/flesh footed shearwaters and giant northern/westland/White chinned/snares cape petrel oh and new Zealand White capped and salvins albatross.

Wow it was amazing!

And then the boat got caught up in some seaweed and because the very nice American tourists kindly said to the skipper that they would leave him to it I was leaning over the side trying to untangle us! To no avail and the skipper had to wrestle open the engine hold undo some bolts and clear the jets from the inside with a very large knife. Martyn was then holding up the lid to the hold so I could clear the kelp off the side! Hands still stink of seaweed but it was a cool little bit of added excitement and Martyn enjoyed seeing the engine almost as much as when the boat shot up the ramp out the sea onto the trailer and the tractor towed us straight up out the water!

P.s Kay has just discovered a large insect bite on her bum