Jessalyn and I were lucky enough to go swimming with the Dusky Dolphins of Kiokoura. After a 40 minute boat ride we pulled up to a pod of literally hundreds of Dusky Dolphins swimming and playfully jumping out of the ocean. Everyone else jumped in to swim with the Dusky’s, but since we were the last ones to sign up and still on the wait list, we needed at least 2 of the 13 other passengers to get sea sick. Now we certainly were not wishing ill on anyone but should one of the other passengers get sick, we were ready to seize the opportunity. Before we knew it, 5 or six of the other passengers were spewing chunks and we were good to go.
After a few dives with the whole group, the crew surprised us and told us we had our own dive all to ourselves.
A few points to keep in mind for this video –
· That awful noise throughout the video is me trying to impersonate the dolphins (as instructed) so they would come closer.
· The Northern Great Petrol (indigenous NZ bird) does in fact go into attack mode on me. As you can see in the video, I beautifully recovered, soiled my wetsuit, and managed to continue filming the dolphins.
