CaliJoe

After a great first night together, we were excited to begin our first full proper day on the tour. There's one thing about these tours that's worth sharing for those who don't already know. The tour is a fairly basic package: it includes accomodations, 1 or 2 meals per day, transportation aboard a coach, and a limited set of sightseeing typically at the same places that all the other coaches stop. What this means is that there are many "optional" activities that you can choose from, which can add sustantially to the total cost of the tour. So, it's something to keep in mind when budgetting for a trip with a tour group.

Quite a few of us opted for a sailing trip around the Bay of Islands. We had a full day and one more night in this place and this particular activity would consume about 6 hours out of our day. It seemed to encompass a good amount of activity in one bundle with snorkelling, hiking, lunch and sailing on the intinerary. There was also the possibility of seeing whales and/or dolphins, and if we were lucky, we could even jump in for a swim with the dolphins.

We set off into the Bay of Islands and the view was marvelous. Something I didn't know at the time that I chose this particular activity was that this area of New Zealand is well known for the high quality scuba diving available all around the bay. The local dive shop said it was one of the top 10 sites for diving in the world. So, here I was, my second day in New Zealand, and I was already thinking that I'd have to come back sometime to check out the dive. The trip inside the dive shop made me realize that there was one rather important thing that I forgot back home: my dive log, and more importantly my dive certification card. I am hoping this won't be a problem when I get over to Australia and the Great Barrier Reef.

I digress. The view was quite marvelous as we cruised around the bay and weaved between the islands on our way out toward the open sea. The boat doesn't venture very far out into open water, if at all, but it goes just far enough to where the whales like to hang out. Within a few minutes of arriving to the outer fringes of the bay, the captain's radio came alive crackling with a report that was unitelligible to me but revealed obvious excitement on other end of the mic.

Whale

We quickly diverted directions and about 100 meters in front of the boat was a whale making his way through the water. It was my first time seeing a whale, so it was pretty exciting. They are quite massive creatures with massive lungs. One of the things this affords them is the ability to stay down quite a long time on a single breath. What this requires from the would be whale watcher is a substantial amount of patience. We spent the better part of 45 minutes tracking the whale around. What I realized is that I'm not much for whale watching and I am glad that we came across this thing rather quickly. I'd rather be in the water with the thing personally.

After we gave up on the whale, we turned back towards the bay and charted a course to Urupukapuka Island, the largest island in the bay.

The "Wet" Option

This is the place were we would drop anchor and spend the afternoon swimming, snorkeling, and hiking around. One thing about New Zealand that's easy to forget is it's geographical position. The stunning crystal blue waters conjour up thoughts of the tropics and warm tepid waters. I can assure you that in reality, it is anything but this. New Zealand's latitude at its northern tip is more south than the bottom tip of South Africa. I'm not sure if it's just latitude or currents or some combination of the two, but the water temperature is about 17 C (63 F). I'd be surprised if the water at our stop was actually this warm. For those not too keen on diving in and swimming to shore, there was a little dingy to taxi people from the boat to shore. The latter was the "dry" option and the former was the "wet" option. Most of us opted to stay dry, but I wasn't going to miss out on my first chance to take a dip in New Zealand's waters.

One of the things that was particularly striking about the Urupukapuka Island (and its neighbors) was the color of the grass. It was the extraordinarily bright green. In fact, it was almost a little too green. You know when they add color to an old black and white movie and it looks a little bit off? It was something like that. Nevertheless, green is my favorite color so I still found it exciting. It only got better once we took a hike to the the top of the island. The captain's promises of splendid 360 degree views for those willing to take to make the trip proved not to be overstated. The bright brilliant green grass in the foreground with the turqoise water of the bay and whispy white clouds dancing on a blue sky was simply breathtaking.

Urupukapuka Island

I was in awe, and if the day handed ended in here, I would have been quite pleased. In fact, pitching a tent is an idea. I can only begin to imagine what the night sky and stars would look like out here, not to mention the sun rising over such a picturesque landscape. It's something for me to add to the itinerary the next time I come out here diving. No diving this time around, although I did manage to take a nice little snorkel around the bay before returning to the boat.

On our way back into Paihia, we shut off the engine and pulled up the sails. I am relatively certain that I've not ever been sailing before, and I quickly realized why it's such a popular pastime. Sure, it's easy for me to say as I lounged on the deck of the boat while the crew ran around pulling this rope and tying another one down; but once the sails were set and the wind took over, the trainquility was palpable and unavoidable.

That was until the radio crackled alive once again with the voice of a man speaking in a familiar tongue with a funny accent. A word about the Kiwis here (Kiwi = someone from New Zealand). I've never met a Kiwi I didn't like. They are, in my experience, a friendly, helpful, obliging and enthusiastic bunch. And this radio traffic was no exception. What was happening is that captain/crew from other boats were letting us know where the wildlife were hanging out. I'd say that's pretty freindly competition. This time around, a group of 3 dolphins had been spotted swimming on the surface around one area of the bay. We quickly lost the sails, fired up the motor, and made our way over to the reported location.

We weren't the only ones who had heard the broadcast. When we arrived, a couple of other boats loaded with eager dolphin-trainers-in-the-making were closing in on our position.

The Dolphins I Swam With

Their excitement was understandable. They had booked a trip devoted solely to "swimming with the dolphins" whereas we had spent our day doing several other things, and the dolphins were a really a bonus at this point. Ironically, the dolphins ended up being closer to our boat. We were told that the trick was to slide into the water calmly yet quickly to have the best shot at catching a glimpse of these guys in action. We ended up in the water twice. The thing about dolphins is that they are fast, very fast. It's one thing at sea world when they are in at 50 foot long tank with a trainer. In the open sea, forget about it. When we first got in the water, they were about 2-3 meters away, and within a few seconds they had checked us out and moved on. I imagine it must have been a hilarious sight from the boat to watch our excitement of having dolphins swimming right at the side of our boat and then the unsuing chaos when we all flopped in the water unsure of which direction they had gone and swimming into and over the top of each other. No complaints here though, I actually got to swim with dolphins in the wild. I'll save the showboating (like riding around on their nose) for the next time.