KAIKOURA, NEW ZEALAND
Because of its location at the intersection of two ocean currents, with extremely deep water right near shore, Kaikoura is a great place to see marine mammals and seabirds that come here to feed. You can book trips here by boat, airplane, or helicopter to see seals, albatrosses, and sperm whales, but the most popular thing to do is to swim with the dusky dolphins that travel in huge groups along the coast. (Dusky dolphins are a lot smaller than the bottlenose dolphins we're used to seeing in dolphin shows and whatnot, and they have a black-and-white color pattern. They're also supposedly the most acrobatic dolphin species.)
So this morning, at the ungodly hour of 5:45 am, Chris, Thomas, and I took a Dolphin Encounters boat trip from South Bay and traveled south along the coast until we spotted an enormous group of dolphins (our guide estimated that there were around 800 of them!). Chris and I had paid to swim with the dolphins, while Thomas stayed onboard the boat and took pictures. We were in two-piece wetsuits with hoods, but it was still friggin' cold! Especially since the sun was just barely coming up when our boat positioned itself in front of the pod and we dove in the water.
Just like when we swam with the seals, we were urged to attract the dolphins by "entertaining" them: diving underwater, making noises through our snorkels, and spinning in circles. This made us all look ridiculous, but it interested some of them enough to swim up to us for awhile and play a little before speeding off. Dozens of dolphins came up and circled me, looking at me up close and coming near enough to touch--it was really cool.
The boat dropped us in the water three times to swim, and then we just followed the pod for awhile and watched them from the boat. Seeing so many dolphins at once was incredible, and they were really acrobatic, jumping out of the water and doing backflips and whatnot. Again, very hard to capture on film, but oh well.
By this time (7 am or so), the wind had picked up, and the ocean swells were getting pretty big, so a good number of us on the boat (including me and Thomas) got pretty seasick. Fortunately we made it back to port before things got really ugly.
Because of its location at the intersection of two ocean currents, with extremely deep water right near shore, Kaikoura is a great place to see marine mammals and seabirds that come here to feed. You can book trips here by boat, airplane, or helicopter to see seals, albatrosses, and sperm whales, but the most popular thing to do is to swim with the dusky dolphins that travel in huge groups along the coast. (Dusky dolphins are a lot smaller than the bottlenose dolphins we're used to seeing in dolphin shows and whatnot, and they have a black-and-white color pattern. They're also supposedly the most acrobatic dolphin species.)
So this morning, at the ungodly hour of 5:45 am, Chris, Thomas, and I took a Dolphin Encounters boat trip from South Bay and traveled south along the coast until we spotted an enormous group of dolphins (our guide estimated that there were around 800 of them!). Chris and I had paid to swim with the dolphins, while Thomas stayed onboard the boat and took pictures. We were in two-piece wetsuits with hoods, but it was still friggin' cold! Especially since the sun was just barely coming up when our boat positioned itself in front of the pod and we dove in the water.
Just like when we swam with the seals, we were urged to attract the dolphins by "entertaining" them: diving underwater, making noises through our snorkels, and spinning in circles. This made us all look ridiculous, but it interested some of them enough to swim up to us for awhile and play a little before speeding off. Dozens of dolphins came up and circled me, looking at me up close and coming near enough to touch--it was really cool.
The boat dropped us in the water three times to swim, and then we just followed the pod for awhile and watched them from the boat. Seeing so many dolphins at once was incredible, and they were really acrobatic, jumping out of the water and doing backflips and whatnot. Again, very hard to capture on film, but oh well.
By this time (7 am or so), the wind had picked up, and the ocean swells were getting pretty big, so a good number of us on the boat (including me and Thomas) got pretty seasick. Fortunately we made it back to port before things got really ugly.
posted by John Kuge at 5:08 PM
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