Whales, Snails & Lobster Tales

A fascinating memoir of a New Zealand underwater cameraman, published on the 50th anniversary of New Zealand’s first marine reserve, at Goat Island.
In Whales, Snails and Lobster Tales, underwater cameraman and documentary maker Andrew Penniket draws on fifty years of diving adventures across the South Seas, from witnessing the majesty of life under the Antarctic ice to being defecated on by a sperm whale in Tonga. He dances with swimming snails at Kaikōura and reveals the intimate lives of lobsters in the dead of night.
These are stories of sea-loving people and remote places, great success and total failure. Penniket reveals the challenges of filming octopus and the trials of following an orca tribe around New Zealand. He journeys to the bottom of Milford Sound, gets squashed by a submersible in the Marlborough Sounds and witnesses one of nature’s greatest spectacles — the courtship of giant cuttlefish, the peacocks of the sea.
He voyages to remote volcanoes to film their tame grouper and takes us cave diving inside mountains. We travel to subantarctic islands swarming with penguins and sea lions then venture far out to sea to chase bluefin tuna.
There are baffling mysteries and behaviours never seen before, illuminating science and entertaining anecdotes — even talking fish. We encounter serious problems in our seas but also solutions to some of its troubles.
Entertainingly written and complemented with stunning photographs, Whales, Snails and Lobster Tales will appeal to anyone interested in the sea: divers, fishers, students, adventurers, and nature lovers.