Welcome to the Great Humpback Whale Trail! Currently we are en route to the Kermadec Islands, the northernmost outpost of Aotearoa. On Saturday evening our team sailed from Tauranga in a golden sunset aboard the RV Braveheart, a 39-metre Japanese-built expedition vessel that is to be our home for the next two and a half weeks. We sail in search of paikea, humpbacks of the South Pacific, as they pass the Kermadecs on their spring migration to the Antarctic.
The crew of the Braveheart set off for the Kermadecs.
The expedition team comprises six whale experts, two seabird scientists, one underwater videographer, one photographer and one blogger/general maritime dogsbody. A small but persistent swell hitting the Braveheart on her beam kept many of the team in their bunks during our first day at sea. Most are now recovered from a brief bout of seasickness, and the wind and swell continue to drop. We have seen four baleen whales, at least one of which was a humpback, all headed south.
The Kermadec Islands themselves are the exposed tips of a much longer arc of submerged volcanoes, which in some cases rise to less than a hundred metres below the surface. Passing over one of these seamounts this morning, the Braveheart slowed as the crew took the opportunity to replenish the ship’s seafood stores. Within an hour we were on our way again with four kingfish, two hapuka and two bass stowed safely in the galley. Marine reserves surround all of the Kermadecs, with commercial and recreational fishing prohibited within 12 nautical miles of the islands, so this was our last chance to get a line in the water for the next few weeks. In 2016 the Kermadecs will become New Zealand’s largest marine reserve, with the reserve boundaries extended to 200 nautical miles.
Late this afternoon we passed, the southernmost of the Kermadec Islands. L’Esperance is a bare, craggy protuberance of red volcanic stone, shrouded in seabirds. A full moon rose in the east as we set our course back northward. We aim to be at Rangitahua/Raoul Island tomorrow morning (Tuesday), when the real work can begin!
By James Tremlett
