He was at South Bay wharf today about 90 minutes before low tide making sure he was seeing correctly. He said the explanation was simple - and it wasn't good.
"Our summer is buggered. We're all out of a job pretty much."
Kaikoura was dependent on tourists and fish, including crayfish, and there wouldn't be any of them around for a few months, he said.
"Normally it's busy, flat out. There are four whale watching boats, three charter fishing boats and three dolphin-watching boats, and long weekends and Christmas we get recreational fishing boats from Christchurch."
But now, instead of diving for paua, the seafood beds had been left exposed by the rise in the sea floor.
"Normally where we go diving people are walking out and picking them up.All the kaimoana that's in that zone is going to die, probably and even the stuff that moves down that's not the environment it likes to live in.
Dean Kennedy, boat skipper