Kaikoura And Swimming With Dolphins

Kaikoura is a tiny cute east coast town on the South Island of New Zealand. It is about a two hours drive from Christchurch. The downtown is historic feeling with a cute east coast (but not touristy) USA feeling with little mom and pop cafe's scattered about. Kaikoura is for sure a retirement place just by the feel of it, and the fabric shop was a big hint also. While at Kaikoura my friend Cara really wanted to go swimming with Dusky Dolphins so we called up Dolphin Encounter and signed up for that day. Expect to pay about $170 NZD... ouch.
The day was beautiful with only a few of those really high wispy clouds, but the water was choppy. Dolphin Encounter told us that there was a sea sickness warning for anyone that went on the tour which totally sucked because I am awesome at getting sea sick. So I went in and talked with them about it and they gave me these ginger tablets which worked out solid. We all loaded into the wetsuit room where we fitted into suits and watched this really dorky video on things not to do to dolphins, and how to attract their attention.

The Boss and his noonies

So we get on the boat (1:18) and take off, on the way to the dolphins there were these Labrador sized birds (no joke) called an Albatross with wingtip to wingtip length of 3.5 meters (11.5 feet) that flew up to the boat and gave us the stare down. Check out this picture. Those are normal sized seagulls for the record. What a beast.

Could you even imagine Birds, with these things? Now that would be really terrifying.

This was the legit tour of wild dusky dolphins in their wild natural environment (Kaikoura Bay) so we needed to dive down and make funny noises with in our snorkels, just like the dorky video (I think it was a trick to keep the crew entertained). Well here are some shots of these beautiful mammals.

Credit: Alexandra Bertin

Credit: Alexandra Bertin