Whale watching in Kaikoura

We had a really successful whale watching trip this morning. We were told that the trips are often cancelled because you have to go out into the open sea and it can get choppy so we were prepared for disappointment.
Luckily ours wasn't and we headed out at 8.15am. The water off the coast of Kaikoura gets very deep very quickly. Tectonic plates meet 1km off the coast creating a 1km deep gorge which allows huge sea creatures to hunt very close to the coast.
We were out for only about 30 mins when we spotted the first sperm whale. We watched it on the surface for a few minutes as it spouted from it's blowhole before diving. We were told that it would then go pretty deep and we wouldn't see it for a while so most of us weren't looking when it suddenly breached the water before diving again. It was a very unusual thing for sperm whales to do so it was a real shame that all four of us missed it. We then travelled a short distance before seeing another and watched that dive too.
We also saw two large groups of Dusky Dolphins that swam and played around the boat and plenty of huge albatroses flying over the surface.
All in all a great excursion.
I'm posting this from the car as we head towards Nelson to stay in a cottage by the sea for two weeks. We willbe able to unpack for the first time since we left Ireland. We're all looking forward to that I think.