Swimming with Dolphins

Hi Guys

It is me again, a very jammy cow indeed as the weather has really been my friend and I got to swim with dolphins! Yeah, lots and lots of wild Dusky Dolphins!

When I left off I had been to watch whales, which was great and all but lets face it Sperm Whales aren't exactly playful! Beautiful but beyond spouting water before finally diving, they don't do much.. Now dolphins, they are much more about the entertainment value. So yesterday morning, when I dragged my sleepy self out of bed at 5am, threw on a swim suit and some warm clothes, blearily worked out how to de-mist my car windows and slowly drove to the dolphin encounter office, there was a small dissident part of my brain that was hoping that it would be cancelled due to weather so that I could go back to bed, where frankly my body firmly believed it belonged.

However, as mentioned the weather was on my side, so rather than snuggling back in to my sleeping bag, I found myself squeezing in to a very fetching (NOT) wet suit, picking up my fippers, snorkel and mask and watching a video on the dos and don'ts when swimming with the wild dusky dolphins.

One of the first things that they flagged (repeatedly I might add) is that these dolphins are wild, so they can not predict whether they will want to play with us or not. As a result, we were told that it was crucial that we entertain the dolphins. Personally I think that the sight of me in a wet suit and flippers should be enough entertainment for anyone, but no they wanted us to sing, make silly noises, circle and if possible dive, in order to keep the dolphins entertained and therefore interacting with us. Oh boy!

After the video we popped on a coach, were taken to our boat (there were about 15 of us on a boat) and off we went in search of dolphins. I have to admit that I was really starting to have mis-givings, it wasn't exactly a warm morning (although the sun rise was spectacular over the water) and what if the dolphins decided that they didn't like me. Could I take the rejection?

Within 25 minutes a pod of hundreds of Dusky dolphins was located and we joined them. We went out on deck and sat on the edge of the boat, waiting for the signal that the propeller had been switched off and that is was safe to get in the water, that at this point was only making my feet feel arctic. Dolphins were everywhere leaping through the air, doing somersaults, playing around the boat and near my flippers. The water was full of them, so when the horn sounded, it wasn't a case of swimming towards the dolphins, more a case of slipping in to the water directly with them.

Now I won't lie to you, for the first minute or so I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to stay in. I started to hyperventilate but realised that this was my body reacting to the sudden drop in temperature, so I stayed calm and within 30 very long seconds I was breathing normally again. About 2 metres to my right I could see a woman with her arm up giving the distress signal to the boat, that came round to pick her up, I can only assume that she had the same experience but it freaked her out, poor thing.

Once I was breathing again I put my face in the water as instructed and realise that there were 2 dolphins swimming directly under me. I squeeled, and the pressure started as I tried to swim (arms by side dolphin style as instructed), look at dolphins and think of something to sing, or noises to make. It is amazing what rubbish I came out with, but I can only blame my brain for being partially frozen at the time. I soon realised that I needed to make more of an effort as none of the dolphins were staying with me, so I started circling and for some reason "Rain drops keep falling on my head" came out at a high pitched hum and that seemed to do the trick as a couple of dolphins started circling me and really looking at me (we were also encouraged to return eye contact, which is an amazing feeling) so that was my tune for the morning, with the odd warble and splutter in between, as inevitably I would get distracted and go to deep and end up drinking sea water through my snorkel.

Suffice it to say, it was an amazing experience and I recommend it to everyone. We seemed to swim for ages and it was great to have the dolphins playing around you. They would come so close, within inches of me and they seemed to find my bad singing entertaining (either that or they are Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid fans! It is a great film).

At one point we got back on the boat to move on before swimming with yet more dolphins, it was great and everyone on our boat seem to have great success with them, as they leapt around them and circled around. I'll never forget it. The captain of the boat did point out, as we were heading back and we saw huge pod of dolphins, that we should be flattered that our dolphins stayed with us rather than going to join the pod. I definitely feel humbled by them, rather than flattered. It was a strange feeling as you really felt that they were assessing you as the swam around you. It was so awesome (sweet as bro, choice...)

After that we changed back in to our warm clothes on the boat and I took lots of pictures and little video clips of the pod, so you can all see them when I get back if you want to.

That is when the cold finally hit me! Even with every warm item of clothing in my possession I was still cold! By the time we got back to shore I could hardly feel my toes, so I drove straight back to the hostel to be re-united with my sleeping bag. I really didn't do much that morning beyond sleep in bed or snooze in front of the television.

At around 5pm I dragged myself to the supermarket and remembered that I was supposed to check if the sunset horse trek over Kaikoura was happening (as when I had called them before I was the only person to book and the weather forecast was looking dodgy). Once again I hoped to hear the words that it was cancelled, but weather was still being friendly and 6 other people had booked on the trip so I had 10 minutes to work out where I was going before grabbing my jacket and trainers and heading to the farm.

Once again, I am glad that my laziness didn't win out as it was an amazing evening as we rode our horses up in to mount Fyffe and got some amazing views over Kaikoura plus we were rewarded with the most amazing sun set! It was breath taking. My horse was called Star and she was a bit of a star really. All of the others that came out (4 brits and 2 americans plus our 2 kiwi guides) were really good fun so we had a great time. By the time we got back (did have a bit of a short run and managed not to fall off this time, so am making progress!) it was dark, we had laughed a lot and our guides (the owner of the farm that we had been riding across, through fields with sheep and cows) had set up some drinks for us plus a lovely cooked Crayfish for us all to taste. So much better than lobster! Their cat Splodge was very affectionate, turns out that she is a big fan of crayfish and that we are all a bunch of softies as we kept feeding it to her! Expensive cat!

After that I had my first experience of driving through pitch black country lanes (I did good), had a couple of glasses of red wine at the hostel before climbing in to bed to sleep the sleep of the truly knackered.

When I woke up this morning the sky was grey and it was raining solidly. Which goes to show that the weather is my friend, as if it had been like that yesterday both the dolphin swim and the horse trek would have been a no go. Instead, today I happily packed up my stuff, loaded up the car and headed to Christchurch with windscreen wipers on hyperspeed most of the way (bends PLUS rain - excellent combination).

So here I am in Christchurch where the sun is shining (left the rain behind about 30 minutes before getting here) and I have had a lovely Sunday afternoon wander through the park, the botantical gardens, the arts centre & market and where I will be watching Casanova in the cinema in 10 minutes (a cinema! I am so excited by the idea of going to a cinema! See I am still a townie at heart!)

Yeah! So I had better go and get the popcorn in!