Traveling Dina - Explore. Dream. Discover.

Thanks to the nonstop tossing and turning of my downstairs neighbor in our rickety hostel bunk, I was up bright and early, with plenty of time to wander around before my “swim with the dolphins” tour.

I scratched the backs of my hands quite intently for a while, then stopped into the one bakery in town. I got a flat white and a “bacon and egg pie,” which I ordered only after the woman assured me that it wasn’t “runny” inside like the other more typical meat pies. The bacon & egg pie was quite tasty, sort of like a quiche or an omelette surrounded by a thick crust.

Next off to the dock for my dolphin tour. I’d signed up for the early tour, and we assembled at 8:15. There were only 4 or 5 other people on the trip, so it was a nice small group — all guys (except for me), which was apparently a bit unusual.

We prepped by putting on the now-familiar somewhat smelly and ndamp ill-fitting neoprene wetsuits and booties and signed the waiver forms. On the boat, our tour guide, LeeAnn, a chipper young Canadian, talked to us about the Hector’s Dolphins that we hoped to see. Not what we think of as “typical” dolphins (a.k.a. “Flipper” or the bottlenose dolphins), the Hector’s Dolphins are among the smallest and rarest of all dolphins, and are found only in New Zealand. They have a striking grey and black coloring, and a small, rounded dorsal fin.

[Check out this site for info on Hector’s dolphins, and scroll to the bottom for some cute pics…]

Our job was to scan the waters for their little fins poking out of the surf. It was overcast and fairly chilly, but a nice ride nonetheless over the semi-rough waters. Unfortunately, we weren’t as lucky as the tours usually are, and the dolphins didn’t come flocking around as expected. we did pause to watch a mom dolphin with her baby, who did indeed look just like a little grey rugby ball with a dorsal fin — and about that size, too! He swam right next to the mom, never leaving her side. It’s not legal to swim with the babies, as they’re still developing, but the couple was great to watch.

We watched a few other small pods of dolphins come and swim around the boat, but none of them seemed to be ina frolicky mood. Our cheerful guide seemed a bit puzzled by this, but managed to convey her bummed outed-ness in a pleasant, singsong voice. Eventually, we found a pold the tour leaders deemed worthy of us jumping in for, and so in we went. Even with the thick wetsuit, the cold knocked the wind out of me. I tried to catch my breath, and began to swim toward the four others, keeping far enough away to let the dolphins (in theory) swim between us.

The guide had given me two rocks, and I tapped them together underwater, as the dolphins are attracted by “funny noises.” I tried to sing into my snorkel (a good “funny noise” source), but I wasn’t quite able to get over my inhibitions to do it with the gusto it deserves. It was so cold that it was very hard to catch my breath, even just bobbing in the waves, waiting for the dolphins to come. The water was too murky to see the dolphins underwater, even when they came close — one swam right by me, but when I ducked into the water to see him (her?), I couldn’t. So, we contented ourselves to watch the little fins circle by every now and then, usually 2 or 3 at a time. No one got super-close to the dolphins, but it was still a neat experience. By the end, I was shivering so much, and the dolphins had pretty much gone away, so I was relieved when it was time to get back on the boat.

We hunted around for some more dolphins, but by then I had decided that there was no way in hell I was getting back into that water. I was shivering pretty violently at that point, even though I was standing in front of the heat source. Watching the dolphins from the boat was actually a little more exciting, because we could see the dolphins’ whole bodies. Our guide explained that she felt we hadn’t gotten the “true” Hector’s Dolphin experience — that the dolphins are usually a lot more playful, coming right up to the swimmers and jumping out of the water, doing tricks, practically making eye contact. She usually has to warn the swimmers that it’s illegal to touch the dolphins, they usually come that close.

So, two strikes out in my attempts to “swim with the dolphins.” At least this tour outfit gave us all partial refunds — we paid only for the “see the dolphins” part of the tour, and the “swim” was refunded. Our guide knew I’d tried to swim with the dolphins in Bay of Islands, and felt doubly bad for me that I wasn’t able to see them. I debated going on another tour that day, but I was pretty exhausted from my lack of sleep, early morning, and extremely chilly swim — I wasn’t sure I’d be able to toss myself back in the water if the time came for it.

So, I took a long, hot shower, and thought about how I’d pass the rest of the day…

Posted April 11th, 2007 by dina in Uncategorized |