Paihia, Bay of Islands

On the advice of our hotel's receptionist we chose to take the swimming with dolphins tour rather than visit the festitivies at Waitangi where 22,000 people were estimated to have celebrated the day.

After breakfast we clambered aboard the Orca II along with 10 other couples (the boat could have held at least double that) and settled on top to enjoy the bay cruise with our fingers crossed, hoping to see some dolphins. As we did so a fleet of Wakas pushed out from the Waitangi river and rowed across the bay as part of the festivities. We circled them, the bunched flock of tents on the shoreline, and the Treaty Grounds before pushing onwards and out between the Island's Moturoa and Motuarohia we came upon a large pod of Bottlenosed Dolphins.

Our captain instructed us that we wouldn't be swimming with these ones for two reasons 1. the sea was too choppy and though it would be easy to push us out, getting us safely back on board would be difficult and 2. the pod was probably tow pods that had met up, and there were babies. In NZ it is illegal to swim when baby dolphins are about because they lack the blubber of adult dolphins. They feed off their mothers twenty times an hour and when people are in the sea the dolphins, being sociable, want to play - the babies therefore forget to feed.

We followed the dolphins for half an hour, watching them diving, playing and jumping just as they would turn on their sides to look back at us. They'd swim into the slipstream pushed forward ahead of the bow by a pressure wave, saving them energy and giving them the opportunity to scratch their backs on the hull. We went onward, our destination the Hole in the Rock, pausing as we went, The Canterbury, NZ newest Frigate. For some reason they made the decision to sink the old one in another bay!

By the time we reached the Hole in Rock, Laura was beginning to wonder why I looked so pale. Fortunately, while I have a weak stomach I have a strong gullet and while the off and on cloudy day turned dark, the choppy sea became evermore...swelly. Laura had to take over camera duties as I tried to keep my eye on the horizon. All I can say of the Hole in the Rock was that it was holey, rocky and filled with water.


Thank God we had almost two hours for lunch, choosing a quiet and settled cove of Urupukapuka, where I could only lie back in the baking sun and try to stop the world inside my mind from pitching back and forth. I had enough stomach to sit up and watch the others snorkelling but little else, so it was with some trepidation that I got back on the boat.



And that's when they got the Boom Net on the side of the boat and 10 of us jumped in like sardines in to the, at first, bloody cold but then surprisingly warm sea - Laura arrived with a squeal. We clung on and were dragged back and forth until Laura had swallowed a pint of sea water.

Unfortunately we didn't spot any more dolphons during the afternoon, though, to be honest, by the time we landed in Paihia, my sickness level was breahing an 8 out of 10!