Don Armitage
1988 and early evening on the west coast of Pitt Island, Chatham Islands. An old steel crayfishing boat, about 50 ft, rusting and slow (10knots if you're lucky) is travelling south across Waihere Bay as the sun is setting. A heavy southwest swell sends enormous waves breaking along the beach and explosions of white foam bursting onto the adjacent cliffs and reefs. A salty mist hangs along the coast.  Big Mangere Island- Don Armitage copyright 1988.
And there he is, perhaps a quarter mile away, halfway between the boat and shore in the grey lumpy sea. Occasionally thrashing tailflukes, wandering aimlessly, yet moving ever closer inshore, blowing silent plumes of humid air. The wind is brisk, the fishermen walmly clad. In the gathering twilight the vessel continues southward to safe anchorage for the night. The whale is lost to sight. In the west the last rays of the sun light high cirrus cloud blood red. The islands of Big and Little Mangere with their sheer faces stand fortress-like in silhouette.
Within an hour or two, in darkness, he is roughly thrust aground and for a time rolls back and forth until water gouges a hole that holds him parallel to the beach. The tail thrashes about and his side flukes react jerkily to the violent wash, his now unsupported body crushes his lungs
Morning finds the carcass easily visible, the jaw hung open, and pounded by incessant surf. Salt spray hangs right along the beach and up the receeding slopes where sheep graze amongst tussock and fallen ake-ake's (and where in the 1990s a metre-long fossil fish, still with its last meal in its gut, is later found.). To the north, Pitt Strait intervenes between us and the long south coast of Wharekauri, the larger inhabited island. (In 1892 a series of icebergs stranded in the strait).
 Waihere Bay- Sperm whale on beach. Don Armitage 1988. We pass the whale perhaps a quarter mile offshore and carry on our way to Big Mangere where the volcanic rock rises to almost 900ft and sparkles in the sunlight from millions of diamond-like crystals embedded in its matter. For one short period flowering ice-plants turn the island purple. The last remnants of bush grow on the scree slopes. Mollymawks sweep up from astern, …majestic, ….in control.
We crest the ridge before dropping down to Waihere Bay. Slow going and eventually we stop and walk.down banks and bogs and past a stream with fools gold stuck to coal, until we reach the beach. The whale lays mostly in the water. Patches of thin greasy skin peal away exposing a pale hard rubbery surface. The eye is as big as a horse's but enfolded in a more human-like way. Just forward by centimeters from his right eye is a 600 mm diameter circle of ulcerated muck who knows how deep. A fighting wound from a giant squid? The septic consequences of a cookie-cutter shark attack? Just speculation.
 Sperm whale on Waihere Beach, Don Armitage 1988.
A length of wood later measured finds the length as 16.2 metres and so around 40 tonnes and 40-50 years old - perhaps born at the end of world war two. Days later, and shortly after schoolchildren visit, it explodes, the heat and pressure from decomposition too great.
Oily slicks snake out to sea. Fur seals on rocks nearby stay ashore. Sheep graze intently metres away,
In days nothing remains.
Don Armitage ©
(First published in The Island Breeze)
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