'I was engulfed in this huge cloud of orange and green slime'

One of the most explosive tales in underwater cameraman Andrew Penniket’s new memoir comes courtesy of a snoozing sperm whale in Tonga.

“It was a big bull, and he was just floating along. And it was incredibly clear water.”

Penniket swam out to the whale, but the current had placed him in an unfortunate position behind its tail, he told RNZ’s Nine to Noon.

“I think the whale must really have been asleep, because it suddenly did this big shudder and evacuated its bowel all right in front of me. I was engulfed in this huge cloud of orange and green slime.

“And then it just sort of stood on its head and just thrust down into the depths - about three or four thrusts - and it was gone. I was left in this big pile of poo and I had to de-slime myself before I was allowed back on the boat.”

Since studying biology and marine biology at Auckland University, Penniket a self-taught cameraman, has had a long career filming for studios around the world, including BBC and the Discovery Channel, and has written a book telling the stories of his time under the surface in Whales, Snails and Lobster Tales.

With camera in hand, he says, and literally focused in the moment, it’s easy to forget you may be in danger.

“It's almost like you're watching it on TV and divorced from the reality. It is quite strange.”

He got a little close for comfort observing a pod of orca once at Hen and Chickens Island in Northland, he says.

“They were thrashing around in the shallows, and I jumped in and crawled along the bottom. They were trying to grab a stingray that was under a boulder, and trying to grab it by the tail and pull it out.

“It was fascinating. I just crawled along the bottom, and I was right in amongst them. Then we got pushed in by the surge into a bit of an amphitheatre and, suddenly, I realised I was between them and the sea, and they all came filing past me. It was only a metre or two away.

"That was the first time I thought, 'oh, I'm not sure I should be here'.”

The orca were fully aware of his presence, he says.

“They just sort of filed past me and one sort of turned its head and looked at my leg and then just kept on going.”

Underwater filming in Antarctica is like being on another planet, he says.

“And then you go through a crack or a hole in the ice and suddenly there's all this life on the seafloor. It's just so beautiful. It's just like being on another planet, two planets removed. I mean, the cold is ferocious, especially around your face and your hands.”

It was there he first encountered Weddell seals “truly amazing animals,” he says.

“They live all year round on the ice down in Antarctica. They don't go out in the open water, 12 months of the year and half of that's in total darkness. In theory, they use their eyesight, but they do these amazing calls.”

The calls are as huge as the animals themselves, he says.

“We were diving out at a place called Turtle Rock, although we did go to quite a few other places later on. We were camping in tents, and you could hear these calls coming up through the ice the whole time.

“But they're huge animals. They're about getting up to four meters long and the diameter of a barrel. They just come rocketing through all over the place. They're just amazing creatures. One of my favourite animals of all time.”

His memoir is published on the 50th anniversary of New Zealand’s first marine reserve at Goat Island, and New Zealand needs more of them, he says.

“They're the only place where you can get big snapper and big crayfish and big blue cod.

"For a crayfish, for example, a small one might have 80 or 100,000 eggs, but a big one has half a million eggs. It's really vital we keep these marine reserves for replenishing the sea and places much further afield.”