Orcas remain on bucket list

They're out there somewhere.

As my time in New Zaland grows shorter, I find myself at all hours staring out to sea. I am determined to spot the whales before I go, though I know the season's wrong. I will not leave New Zealand with many regrets, but seeing the Orca in Wellington Harbor has held me in strange sway. The sightings - and there have been at least a dozen of them in the two years I've been in Wellington - are reported regularly online. I usually drop what I'm doing and head into town. But, wraith-like, the beasts have always moved on, leaving people chattering excitedly in their wake. I've heard strories, but they do not belong to me.

Dawn breaks, whale-less

Nowadays, like the French Lieutenant's Woman, I look out over the ocean in fog or rain, nightime or day, waiting for a sign that never comes. I fear, though, that without John Fowles to provide three alternate endings, this story's going to finish predictably. Oh well, one for the bucket list and a reason - yet another - to want to come back to Wellington some day.