Miles tells me I should start at the beginning instead of jumping into the middle. He's right, so....
The morning dawned grey and soaked from a goon nights rain. We both awoke exhausted after not much sleep (not sure why just could NOT sleep) and Miles throat was scratchy from wood smoke drifting in all night. To say the least we started of a bit shaky and less than enthused. Breakfast was also less than enthusiasm generating. Dry pizza and a nasty bagel. Not much is open in New Zealand at 7:30 in the morning, if you need a coffee fix you better fix it yourself! So we trudged through the grey wet morning eating our dry breakfast and sharing a jug of milk. yup, a jug of milk. When we got to the Dolphin Encounter building we were thrilled to see it included a cafe, yay coffee! After the coffee (ok hot chocolate) we both perked up and got excited about the trip. To help build the excitement, they had a teaser video playing. It showed groups of Dusky dolphins performing amazing acrobatic antics, Sperm whales surfacing and flipping their tails and Orca with their impressive dorsal fins cutting through the water. All shot in NICE CALM seas.............. we were not so lucky, but I digress. Wet suits were donned, and then we got to sit in an amphitheatre to be "briefed" on the days activities. I don't know how familiar you are with wetsuits, but they're not exactly loungewear. The hilight of the briefing- TAKE SEASICKNESS MEDS. oh and don't try to touch the dolphins. So we boarded a bus for the short drive to South Bay harbour and divided up into our three boats of dolphin swimmers and watchers. We popped onto a 9m boat the smallest in the fleet and headed out to the open seas. on BIG swells. Lets just say I don't think enough people took gravol.... There were puke buckets being handed around like nobody's business. We were some of the lucky ones, we're getting the hang of that stare-at-the-horizon-and-dont-blink thing. Actually it wasn't that bad for us, I think we're getting used to being on the water. Our boat mates... not so much. But we were quickly successful at finding some dolphins, about a 25 minute cruise brought us to a group willing to hang out with us. They followed in the wake of the boat surfing dolphin style. Energy levels skyrocketed at the sight as people began putting on the rest of the gear and got ready to slip into the water off the back of the boat- duckboard. Miles was the first one in and I was not far behind, as soon as we looked into the water we were surrounded by about 8 dolphins varying in size from about as long as me to as long as Miles, quite small dolphins. They were playful and curious yet still distant enough not to get too many photos, but the experience was still cool. they checked us out for a few minutes then continued on their way. Aparently we weren't amusing enough. So we crawled back into the boat and found another group much more willing to hang about. This proved to be the most rewarding experiece, especially for Miles. I'll let him tell the story.
Miles- Now I have, as most know, been in the water with dolphins before. Twice actually, both of these times it had been under artifical conditions. At the time this was not such a displeasing idea, but these are truly intellegent animals, which need to be free. Having any FREE animal come up to you and stare you in the eyes, is an experience one never forgets. These dolphins we swam with are FREE and quite remarkable. On the sencond swim, we got right into calling the dolphins by making noise through our snorkels and diving down, and generally just making clowns of ourselves. The dusky's found us quite entertaiing this time, they stayed around our group of about twelve people for more than 20 minutes. This lent its hand to the photographs that both Brianna and I had hoped for. Close up and intimate. So intimate in fact that one of the dolphins I had been interacting with solo, swam below me and rubbed her fins along my torso. Not typically an experience you have with a wild animal everyday. It was remarkable. At times these graceful animals swam so close you could wrap your arms around them. Yet despite the urge, it would be like intruding a bubble. Leave the contact to them and its so rewarding when it happens. Bri had quite the experience herself
Brianna - Back again!
How do you explain to someone the impact of interacting with a truly intelligent species??? One that scientists are just starting to try and understand. We know they are smart- but its more that that, some dogs are smart too, the intelligence they have is more profound, its more like ours, in some ways, they may be smarter than we are, we;re only just starting to try and figure that out. But they are self aware, every breath is a concious act, they aren't reflex breathers like us, they can empathize with each other, and every dolphin has a name. Don't we say that our names are what make us human? So what does that say about them??? the ability to show empathy, to call another by name, to recognize the individuality of each memeber of their pod, that is incredible. When a dolphin look at you, they see you. Anyway..... back to my experience.....
So I'm away from the group (I was getting sick of being kicked in the head) and just looking down into blue-green water and thats all I can see, I can't see the bottom, just this blue-green surrounding me. And out of it I see a shadow start to come up, then it gets darker and slowly it becomes a single dolphin. She swam straight towards my face never slowing, never breaking her movement until she was only a few feet from me and she slowed right down, turned and looked me in the eye and then swam off slowly back into the blue. It doesn't sound all that amazing, but it was really something to see. I had another one who decided to swim around me in circles so I met her gaze and circled with her and we did about 3 circles, then she dove down, and came back to cirlce the other direction, THAT was cool. but alas I inhaled water and surfaced sputtering and she went on her way. At one point I was just floating in the water and couldn't see any dolphins, I was just hanging there staring into the blue and one came up behind me slowly drifting up alongside me until we were looking eachother in the eye. I held my breath and rolled to the side so my belly faced his and he rolled a little then sloooooowly kept on going past me on to the next swimmer. That was pretty powerful, the fact that he just came up to me and looked me in the eye and acknowledged me in his way before he carried on. The very last swim of the day another swimmer and I were about two arms lengths apart and this one smaller dolphin was just zooming around us, first in a large circle around both of us and then she decided to do figure eights around and between us, there was not much space between us at this point but she flew through the gap as though she had miles, and never so much as brushed us. Probably a good thing as she was going SO fast, then she shot down and back up just as fast, arcing up out of the water above our heads and into an oncoming wave. Our own little acrobat. What an incredible day.
Once we were back on the boat again we cruised for a bit with plenty of Duskys playing in the wake and surfing on the pressure wave at the front. As we left their territory we continued to see plenty of sea life. We saw some seals playing in the waves, we saw plenty of (i think) shearwaters, we saw two different kinds of albatross, the smallest type which still had a wingspan of over 2.7m and a larger type- a wandering albatross I think our guide called it whose wingspan was over 3.6m. Those are some crazy big birds!!! Then we got a rather exciting report on the boats radio, a pod of orca had been spotted further north along the coast so our skipper took us up to see them. So cool! There was at least one good sized male with a dorsal fin that stood about 6 ft tall. We saw him surface a couple times, as well as a few (about 3) smaller females in the same pod. We thought there might be a baby for a bit, but it turned out to be a dusky dolphin "mobbing" the pod. See, Orcas may be the biggest dolphin, but they still like to make a meal out of unlucky duskys. So sometimes Duskys will hang with a pod of Orca or "mob" them basically saying "I know you're here man, I know you're here, don't even think about eating me" or so our guide translated it for us. Its something to see these animals, the males can be 9m in length, which makes you feel really small when your boat is... 9m.... and his dorsal fin is taller than you are standing up. Females are about 6-7m long and equally remarkable. they can weigh in at 3 tonnes. Imagine that coming into view in your snorkel mask!!!!! itd be like having a submarine with teeth sneaking up on you!
By this time, those who were seasick in the beginning were truly miserable, hanging onto their buckets as though to save thier lives, so our skipper took mercy and brought us back to solid ground. All around, it was an amazing, incredible day, one that we will not ever forget.
Love Brianna and Miles
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