In Search of Giant Squid
Our motel, the Panorama, is located on a road that hugs the shore line
of the Kaikoura Peninsula. Its a busy road, even though it dead-ends
at the seal colony about 3 km down the road. Looking out our window
where we have set up a table as our desk, I see all kinds of activity.
At low tide tourists visit the many tide pools, turning over rocks
eagerly searching for some unusual animal. Clyde is ever hopeful to
find an octopus under one of those overturned rocks.
There are snorkelers cutting through the water just beyond the ledge, hoping,
I'm sure, to find a stray crayfish (like our lobsters without claws).
Kaikoura is famous for its crayfish. In fact, Kaikoura in Maori means
to eat crayfish. We see fur seals floating on their backs, sunning
themselves. Occasionally dolphins wander into this bay.
Next door to our motel is the Youth Hostel. We see heavily laden
backpackers of all ages, slowly lumbering past our window every
afternoon; in the morning after a restful night they walk more
sprightly back toward town to continue on their journey. They are
quiet neighbors.
A half mile beyond our motel is a seafood packing facility. Huge 18 wheelers filled with large green-lipped mussels and fish roll toward the plant where the mussels are extracted from their shells and processed. The shells are discarded into large dump trucks. The scavenger sea gulls, ever hopeful for a full shell that has been overlooked, hover over the processing plant, swooping down to snatch up a loose shell. They stay with the discarded shells, and as the trucks travel back down the road, the gulls follow overhead, keeping up with the truck. The trucks look like airplanes along the seashore in the summer, pulling advertising banners.
The seal colony is easily accessible at low tide. Stuffed seals,
snuggled in the seaweed, sun themselves during the day on the ledge
rocks. They are very tolerant of the humans who look at them,
however, people must maintain a critical distance. Any closer than
10-12 ft. and the seals hiss at you like a cat, warning you to stay
back. If you are downwind of them, you dont want to get any closer
than that anyway! On land these animals are extremely awkward;
however, as soon as they slither into the water, they are as graceful
as dolphins and just as playful.
Smithsonian Giant Squid Overview Page
gene carl feldman / gene@seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov