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| Seeing dolphins is a wonderful experience - so we had to go one further and try to swim with them! |
| Erin's Journal 01-06-03 & 01-07-03 New Zealand Today we were supposed to go on the dolphin experience trip, but heard the rain on our roof before our alarm even went off. Knowing this meant it would be cancelled, we simply slept in till we felt like getting up, then checked out of our motel and drove up the coast a ways to check out Whakatane. This small town is about an hour and a half east of Tauranga, through farmlands and coastal towns, and its main claim to fame is the active volcano sitting 50 kilometers offshore. White Island still sends up steam and smoke most days, and is an expensive destination by boat or air. We weren't interested in that - we wanted to sit and read somewhere near the beach! We sat on a park bench overlooking the marina for lunch, with me feeding the sparrows little bits of my sandwich crust and chips (much to Glenn's perpetual disgust). Then we drove a little further around the coast and found a nice park to lay our towel down in and read. Actually, the sun was peeping through the clouds by now, and I managed to fall asleep in the sun for almost an hour. Stupid, as I burned my chest, shoulders and back (and face, as always), but it felt really nice and relaxing! We hung out down there till about 3:30, then drove back to town to check into the hostel we'd reserved there. We walked down the strand to find a place to eat, and ended up at an Irish pub for a steak (Glenn) and burger dinner. The atmosphere was nice, but the food was nothing special. Sigh. Good food is hard to find consistently. After dinner, we headed up to the internet cafe to do a quick email check, and ended up staying 90 minutes working on making up more photo pages for our website. I'm addicted! By the time Glenn dragged me away, we were both ready for bed. 01-07-03 New Zealand Today was our second chance to take the dolphin experience trip. Luckily, the day dawned nice out - not totally clear, but close enough. We got ourselves down to the dock in the nick of time, and jumped on the boat right after the captain himself. The crew introduced themselves, and we chatted with the two other passengers from our pickup point on the way to the other docks at Mt. Maunganui. When we arrived there, we picked up about 15 more people, including 3 girls under age 5 and an infant! Couldn't believe their parents were bringing these youngsters on an all-day sea voyage! Anyway we were heading out to sea soon, at a nice slow pace that didn't disturb me or Glenn at all. The waves got slightly bigger as we went out of the bay, though, and several of the other passengers decided to take the dramomine to keep from getting seasick. Within an hour, though, there were a couple of the moms that couldn't take the rolling, and went belowdecks to try and sleep to ignore it. I felt sorry for them! We still had hours to go out there! We found a pod of dolphins after only about 90 minutes, and they swam along with the boat, playing in the wakes and zooming back and forth to swm nearby. At that point, we donned our wetsuits in the hopes that they'd come to the back of the boat and swim with us. About 5 of us went down to the swim step off the back of the boat, and hung onto the bar with our snorkel equipment on, humming madly to let the dolphins know we were back there. I had real trouble getting my breathing to slow down enough and relax enough to get my head int the water. The water was cold, but mostly it was the waves from the slow-moving boat hitting me at irregular intervals that would shock me out of the water. I had to get out after a few tries to put my head in, and rest up a bit to get my breath back. But the crew member helping us was great, and talked me into trying again. This time she held onto my arms as an extra reassurance that I wouldn't get pulled off by the waves, and I managed to get my head into the water to look for the dolphins. Unfortunately, this pod didn't feel like playing with people directly today, and none of them swam back to be with us - they stayed at the front of the 60-foot boat. We gave up after about 20 minutes in the water, and boarded the boat again to watch them play off the front a bit more, then left that pod to see if we could find another pod that WAS in the mood to play with people. We sailed for the rest of the day (really a gorgeous sailing day - sunny and pretty clear, not rough seas), even stopping near an island to snorkel in the foreshore, but didn't see any more dolphins. Some were disappointed, but I felt like I got what we paid for. It was an experience! On the rest of the ride, we ended up talking with a fellow American traveler who was doing some of the same destinations as us. Her name was Karen, and we chatted for quite a while, getting some good recommendations of things to see nearby. There was a hot springs right at Mt. Maunganui that we'd walked right by the day before without even knowing it! When the boat stopped there, we said goodbye, thinking we might see her there later in the afternoon. When we docked back at the home port, we thanked the crew and captain for a great day, and took off for the hot pools to relax. I had burned my neck pretty badly in the sun - you always miss some part when reapplying, don't ya? I decided to stay out of the pools except my feet, and sat on the side reading while Glenn immersed in one of the cooler pools. Sure enough, Karen showed up a little later, and she and I sat and talked for another hour or so. Then I thought it would be time for dinner, so we invited her to join us, and got ourselves rinsed off and ready to go. We found a restaurant in Mt. Maunganui's little town, and enjoyed a good meal and excellent dessert with her before heading back to our hostel for an exhausted sleep. |