The day after starting our new exercise routine we both woke unable to walk and slowly dragged ourselves to the car for a short two hour drive to Kaikoura. The sun was shining as we made our way down the coast and hobbled straight onto our own private fishing boat for an afternoon on the ocean. We started in relatively shallow waters to catch our bait. Our target were barracuda. Claire brought in the first one and then Greg another two. Because of the size of them (HUGE) we only needed the three. With these filleted expertly by our guide we headed out to the big blue where the wind had picked up and the sea had become a touch rough. Luckily Claire had taken super sea-sickness pills and was able to put all her focus into the days fishing, hauling in a total of six sea perch. Unfortunately Greg, not prone to sea sickness except in very rough sea, had not taken anything to prepare. His focus was therefore divided between the task in hand and trying to stop himself from redecorating the deck an interesting shade of green. He was therefore only able to catch one sea perch and one blue cod (although this had to be thrown back as it was undersize). Still we had more than enough for our dinner.

On the way back to shore we checked the guides crayfish traps which contained ten or so crayfish, five sand sharks and an octopus. We kept the crayfish but returned the sharks and octopus and returned to land followed by a flock of gulls and an albatross or two. That night we feasted like royalty on BBQ'd sea perch and crayfish.

That night we were woken by high winds and stormy weather and unfortunately, after rising early, we were informed our dolphin swimming trip had been cancelled. However with the storm in full swing we both felt more relief than sadness. We therefore set off for the next stop, Nelson.