Kaikoura...

...is my new favorite city (you may hear this periodically as our travel continues). Kaikoura is incredibly beautiful: The mountains literally meet the sea, and being autumn, the peaks are dusted with snow. Our hostel, Sunrise Lodge is CLEAN, and Linda, the friendly owner, is super nice. She and her husband are retiring, and I hope the new owners keep Sunrise as sparkling and friendly as it was when we visited it. After a fantastic meal of blue cod, we went to bed early in preparation of our 5:30am swim with the dolphins!


See what I mean! 

We arrived at Dolphin Encounter at 5:45am and got into wetsuits, including a balaclava, since the water is just 15 degrees Celsius (i.e., freaking cold). Next, we watched a film, reminding us that dolphins are wild and we are in their environment. This is not Flipper or SeaWorld, and one should not attempt to touch or otherwise disturb or interfere with the dolphins. Since we are visiting them, it is up to us to entertain the dolphins - if we are interesting enough to the dolphins, they will want to swim near us to check us out - they are very curious and social animals. The film instructed us in several ways we could entertain the dolphins: Diving down, swimming in circles while making eye contact with a dolphin, and singing or squeaking.

We piled into the bus and headed toward the docks where we boarded our trusty vessel and headed out onto the DEEP blue ocean. The ocean is truly deep here as there is a 3,000 foot canyon: Currents running through the canyon provide heaps of food for other marine life, such as the dusky dolphins.

We rode the swells of the ocean in search of the dolphins, sitting toward the back of the boat, anticipating the "all clear" whistle, signaling that the boat propellers were off and it was safe to enter the water. (Best to wait for the whistle unless you want to be "food processed" into shark bait.)

I watched my breath steaming in the cold morning air, awed that I was about to plunge into freezing saltwater on purpose. Then, I saw dolphins all around us! It was a mega pod of dusky dolphins - there were close to a hundred of them! We eagerly, yet quietly, slipped into the icy water, gasping as the icy water filled our wetsuits. Yet awareness of the chilly Pacific waters evaporated as I endeavored to entertain these magical beauties into spending a little bit of time with me.

I cannot dive down in a wetsuit as they are super buoyant and I haven't the body weight to overcome this buoyancy (believe me, I've tried, much to the amusement of Laura and other onlookers at the Goat Island Marine Reserve). No worries though - there were dolphins all around me! It was amazing! They were SO CLOSE - I cried into my face mask. As two circled around me I caught one's eye and madly swam in a circle attempting to keep pace with her (as if) and maintain eye contact. I was elated! I had several dolphin encounters, and eager for more interaction I went with the one tactic I had left: Singing.

Dolphins would swim past, next to me, beneath me, and away. I kept changing songs to entice them back with something new as dolphins use sound to communicate. I squeaked, I squealed, I sang my little heart out through my snorkel tube. As I got colder, I racked my brain for tunes to sing, going through a truly varied repetoire from the theme to "The Brady Bunch" to "God Bless America!" (Honey, I really need those singing lessons :-)) I'm sure the captain of the boat was laughing so hard he could barely drive, but believe me, when you have the chance to mingle with dolphins, you don't care how stupid or silly you look (or sound) or how many people/dolphins laugh at you!

Dolphins, obviously, are a lot faster than people, so our captain would periodically catch us all up to the pod via boat. We swam with the dolphins 4 times, (the crew ensures the dolphins don't get upset, etc., by monitoring their behavior and by limiting the total amount of human contact with the pods).

By swim #2, my teeth were chattering. By swim 3, I was shaking uncontrollably and my movements were becoming uncoordinated. I surprised myself by being one of the first ones in for swim 4 (others had quit after #3) - I couldn't resist living a dream! It was interesting to see what happens to my body when it gets that cold. I literally could not get dressed as my fingers wouldn't work (my toes were white and numb as well). It took me half a day to warm up (God bless hotties aka hot water bottles, hot drinks, hot showers, and wool clothing!)

More on Kaikoura later!

Heaps of love from NZ,
Teej

p.s. Here's a picture I took after my fingers unfroze a bit.


This is the best I could do on a moving boat with quickly moving dusky dolphins!