Day two: orca sightings & a shake-down dive Day two: orca sightings & a shake-down dive

Our expedition team is back from the Three Kings Islands and ready to answer your questions about what they found and to show you some of the specimens they collected to help build their understanding of the marine environment. The blog has been a fantastic chance to follow their discoveries but now you can meet them face to face and talk to them about their preliminary findings about marine life in the Three Kings. In the few days since the team got back on dry land they've already identified that one of the fish they found is likely to be a new species. So who knows what tomorrow will bring. You can meet four of the team - including University of Queensland PhD student Libby Liggins and one of the expedition's photographers Richard Robinson - tomorrow at 11am at the Auckland Museum. There are some more details of the session below and we've also got some more underwater footagREAD MORE...

Day two at sea, and we’ve made steady progress up the east coast overnight on our way to the Three Kings. We passed the Poor Knights islands at dawn, and by 9am we were approaching the Cavalli Islands, which lie just off Matauri Bay in the Bay of Islands.

Cavalli Islands - here's where we're going to sneak in our first dive before we reach the Three Kings tomorrow at dawn — Cavalli Islands – here’s where we’re going to sneak in our first dive before we reach the Three Kings tomorrow at dawn

If calm seas were something to celebrate yesterday we’ve gone one better today. We’ve had calm seas and an orca sighting! And not just one or two orcas, but a large pod of at least 13 or 14 that came past the boat over a ten minute period.

Our first unexpected find: a pod of orca whales

New Zealand orca specialise in eating stingrays, and judging by the orca’s behaviour once they reached a shallow channel between the mainland and the closest island – lots of tail slapping and breaching – they were in hot pursuit of some tasty rays.

Juding by the orca behaviour we think they were in hot pursuit of some tasty rays

We’ve now anchored at the Cavallis, and will be here until 6pm tonight.

Everyone is out on the back deck at the moment sorting out all the dive gear and scientific equipment, and in a couple of hours we’ll get into the water for a shake-down dive. It’s a good opportunity in calm water to get used to diving out of the inflatable boats, and run through safe diving procedures. There will be a bit of work done on the dive of course – Wendy is on the hunt for seaweeds, and Kareen and Libby are interested in invertebrates so we’ll be collecting sample of those while we’re in the water.

I’ve just carried out an interview with Kareen and Wendy so you’ll hear from them soon and we’ve been writing up some answers for all the Freeman’s Bay students following our blog and sending in great questions. More soon.

6 Responses to “Day two: orca sightings & a shake-down dive”

Charlotte Thomas
April 9, 2013
Hi Tom and the team. It looks like you are going to have a great time up there, I hope the weather stays nice for you to dive. Wow I didn’t know that you used cat food and light sticks to attract sea creatures, how cool! I might have to try that and see what I get. How warm is the water going to be there?
I look forward to reading about how many new species you have found.
Bye, Charlotte
philippe zintzen
April 9, 2013
Hello,I’m vincent’s father. I’m a little jealous about your nice weather cause we have so bad weather in Belgium ! And what can I write about the fantastic meeting with the orcas: GREAT !!! It’s not comparable with my little grey shrimps (not alive) in my sandwich …….Bon vent à tous and see you soon. Philippe
Jonathan
April 9, 2013
Thanks for the photos of the orcas – they are awesome! My auntie lives in Wellington & they had some orcas down there recently. I hope some come to Auckland real soon so I can see them in real life!
Chander's class
April 9, 2013
The orcas looked enormous and cool-Destin
You guys are lucky with the calm seas and we hope it will stay calm on your whole expedition
How big is the average orca?-Xavier
Did you see any baby orcas?-Jasmine
What sort of science equipment do you mean?-Jim
Thanks for the lovely photos!
- Melanie Cooper
  April 10, 2013
  They didn’t see any baby orca but Destin you’re right about them being enormous – the big males are up to 7m long, probably longer than your classroom! Check out this link to find out the other name for an orca and why it doesn’t really fit http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/orcas/page-1 You’ll find more great answers on the blog’s ‘Ask a scientist’ page
Ayesha's class
April 9, 2013
Hello again,

We are enjoying reading your posts

Were there any baby orca whales?
How big are orcas?
How was the dive? What was it like?
What are you having for dinner? Did you catch any fish?

Have a great day and we hope you found some good samples.