Kaikoura

For a last minute getaway, I hitched a ride with my friend and her Kiwi mate to Kaikoura, where they were going to dive for crayfish--a local pastime and culinary obsession. We drove north from Christchurch to this small town to which tourists flock to swim with seals, dolphins, and other exotic marine wildlife, go fishing, whale-watching, horseback riding, hiking, and diving. After almost 3 hours of driving, the green, rolling pastures spill onto rocky, white coastline, which tumble down into brilliant turquoise water.

My friends dropped me off at the information centre, where I scanned some brochures and decided that I would join a fishing party boat for the afternoon. After making my booking at the desk, I was directed along the coastline toward the seal colony to Jimmy Armer's Beach, where my boat would be waiting at half past noon. It was only 11am, but the sun was already very strong, without a cloud in the sky threatening to provide shade. It was a great day to be on the water.

I arrived at the beach early and found the man who operated "Fish Kaikoura." He wasn't ready, so I waited and watched him clean the boat following that morning's excursion, washing away the stains of fish blood and flesh with buckets of briny water. After all traces of the previous hunt were cleansed away, I along with four other tourists--two from Japan, one from Holland, and one from London--climbed aboard with our skipper, an older, affable man with a bright spirit.

Our captain brought us to the seal colony--a series of rocks where we found many seals bathing, swimming, and sleeping in the high noon sun. Perched up on the rocks, they lazily ignored the crashing of waves around them. They seemed bored with their beautiful home among the seagulls, albatrosses, dolphins, sharks, whales, and marine-bound tourists. Some did swim up to the boat expecting a bite, but we had yet to put our lures in the water.

First, we hauled up the crayfish cage, and although it was empty, we were each promised one from the morning's harvest. Moving to the open water, we caught at least a dozen of tangerine-painted sea perch, a small, easily caught eating fish. The dutch girl was lucky enough to hook a blue cod, the larger, more desirable species with shimmering blue and silver scales.

Satisfied with our wriggling bucket of perch, we decided to call it quits, reel in our last catches, and head home. Mysteriously, though, after several minutes of letting it out, my lure had never touched bottom. So I decided to reel it in and hope for something to nibble the bait on the way in. After a minute or two of reeling, the line became taught, the rod arched forward, and it became increasingly difficult to turn the handle.

After about 5 minutes of fighting whatever got hold of my bait, I expected to see two big blue cods dangling from the two hooks on my line. But no more cod were to be caught that day. I snagged something better: a 1.5 meter shark. Almost ironically, trailing behind it on the second hook was another perch, wriggling in the shadow of what we thought was a Mako.

Looking back I wish that I had let it go (if that was at all possible without losing a finger), but at the time, I was excited by the prospect of conquering this writhing, formidable animal. Ashore, this excitement drove me to fillet it, revealing its fantastic organs protected by its tough, sand-paper-like skin. (maybe the surgeon in me??)

While my diving friends returned empty handed, I, on the other hand, had enough crayfish, sea perch, and shark to feed ten people. So we returned to Christchurch, where my friend's grill, the kiwi's chardonnay, and my freshly caught and filleted fish made a great meal under a late-summer's evening sky.





Cheers,

Dana