I have never liked being seaborne.

I still have horribly vivid memories of throwing up in Ostende harbour... Spending the Bay of Biscay horizontal in a shared cabin, eating nothing but Rowntrees Fruit Pastilles because everything else reappeared swiftly... Bobbing endlessly up and down off the Corsican coast...

So why did I agree to a whale-watching trip in the Pacific Ocean???

OK, 'the Pacific' makes it seem rather grand, something like an expedition taking many months to organise, probably in the company of Sir Ranulph Fiennes and his seven and a half remaining fingers. In fact, we were only about five kilometres off the coast of New Zealand, but for my stomach and me that most definitely counts as the Pacific Ocean.

I would like to say quite proudly, however, that I wasn't sick. It was close, but I held onto my lunch.

To backtrack a day or so, however, so anyone following these entries doesn't get lost...

We left Blenheim on Saturday morning, passing through the last of the vineyards on a gloriously blue-sky early summer's day. The route to Kaikoura took us along the coast and the ocean was an amazing turquise colour, the likes of which neither of us had ever seen before.

Having found a campsite in the town, we wandered out and were treated to the beautiful sight of that blue-green water, white surf and black sand beach - yet with lush greenery and snow-capped mountains only a couple of miles in the distance.

The campsite owner had told us that the best time to view the whales was early morning so we bravely reserved a spot on the 07.15 trip. (Yes, our watches DO have 07.15 on them, it's just that we rarely see it ourselves.)

However, the wind started getting up overnight and by the appointed hour it was a grey, miserable day. When we reached the tour centre, we were greeted by the sign 'Strong Sea Sickness Warning'. Not good.

I asked the woman on the ticket desk what the forecast was and she told us that the swell was likely to slacken off later in the day - so we postponed until the 13.15 departure and walked back to our van where Katy promptly fell asleep.

I was greatly relieved when we returned to find that the sign now read only 'Sea Sickness Warning', having dropped the word 'Strong'. Notwithstanding the loss of that particular adjective, I decided to invest the sum of $2 in a motion sickness tablet.

The boat was in fact a catamaran, especially designed for whale watching. They had warned us that the worst part of the journey was the bouncing around when going out to where the whales were located, rather than being in that area itself, though I wasn't convinced.

The first part of the journey was in fact fine, something like a ride at Alton Towers. We began to feel that all the warnings had just been a ploy, either to avoid complaints or sell the various remedies they had to offer. However, despite my growing feelings of confidence one of our fellow passengers chucked up into one of the many sickbags almost immediately. A crew member named Billy had the extremely pleasant job of dealing with all these bags - we hope they paid him well.

We were on the lookout for sperm whales which isn't easy as they spend about 45-60 minutes beneath the waves for every 5-10 minutes on the surface. This means that both crew and tourists anxiously scan the seas looking for the spray from their blowholes and at times the captain had to do something complicated with sonar in order to hear what was going on at extreme depths.

The depths are pretty extreme, by the way, which explains the presence of the sperm whales in the first place. As well as the warm coastal waters, there is a deep trench just offshore which is apparently nice and cold and full of the sort of food that sperm whales like to eat. (Yes, they have teeth and eat, rather than just scoop up plankton.)

After one near miss when the whale disappeared just as we spotted it, we dashed off to another location and there it was - our first proper sperm whale. We all dashed to starboard to get a better view and Katy and I went up to the top deck to get an even better angle. Katy toook the photos and movies while I eyed the beast through my binoculars. Splendid.

That, however, was when I started to feel sick. The top deck definitely moved more than the lower. And when the boat lurched down and to port, my stomach remained beligerently up and to starboard. After that particular whale disappeared into the deep for a good feed, I made my way downstairs to find that Sickbag Billy had two more clients.

There then followed more dashing about, some of it in the company of Dusky Dolphins, and a further two good whale sightings. Good is perhaps a relative term. Sperm whales don't really do a lot, well not a lot that you can actually see, They are impressively large and grey, but so was the water. The best bit is in fact when they decide it's time to head to the bottom of the ocean again - they arch their backs and their tails break the water for a second. Then they are gone.

The motion of the water and of my stomach, however, just kept going... on and on and on and on...

After the second sighting, even Katy was beginning to look very pale and she isn't generally a sufferer. We both made it outside for the third whale, though after that I stayed in the cabin and concentrated on the information screen. I also discreetly observed how many other people were suffering - at least six people made use of the sickbags, which is quite impressive out of a total of only forty-eight.

It was quite a relief after two and a half hours to reach shore, where one of the staff saw my ghostly pallor and recommended a cup of hot water to settle my stomach.

She was right, so much so that after a rest and a very large chilli I was ready to have a few beers in the lively-looking centre of Kaikoura.

Ah, I'd forgotten. This is New Zealand. On a Sunday evening. The best pub was actually shut (as were most of the restaurants by 9pm) so after a couple of drinks watching New Zealand dismantle England at rugby, that was that.

Richard