Swimming with flipper and his friends!

After our 3 days of hiking we drove an hour north along the coast to the city of Kaikoura. Kaikoura is renowned as one of the world’s leading destinations to view marine mammals and seabirds in their natural environment. We were able to swim with literally hundreds of wild dolphins! It was so so cool! The water is very cold in New Zealand so we had to wear wetsuits, which were buoyant when filled with water.

Mary and I both have the Olympus Stylus 790SW camera, which is waterproof up to 10 feet underwater. We got hundreds of shots of the dolphins, it was unreal how many there were and they were all so close we could reach out and touch them all! We were told it was our job to entertain the dolphins and that they like it when we swim in circles and sing to them. The guides said we were really lucky, as we only had to go out 5 minutes on the boat before we found the first pod of dolphins. We swam with 3 different huge pods of dolphins and I couldn’t believe how many there were!

The majority of dolphins we saw were the dusky dolphins. The dusky is one of the smaller dolphins at about 1.6 to 1.8 meters in length. In New Zealand the dusky dolphin is commonly found along the east coast of the South Island. They inhabit the waters off Kaikoura year round. Over the summer months from November to April they are generally found closer to shore. They are social creatures that congregate in groups or pods up to several hundred in number. They are known as the ‘acrobats of the sea’ and we all got to see their jumps and somersaults!

To see all the pictures of our swim with the dolphins CLICK HERE!

Mary left today to go back to San Francisco. I was so sad to see her go and we had a great time traveling together the past 2 weeks! Mary is my newest friend in San Francisco, we met playing on a kickball team. I have only known her for a year, but we clicked right away and she has become one of my closest friends. We believe we get along so well because we are each other’s most compatible astrological sign…Capricorn (me), Taurus (Mary.) I am thrilled she has a great new guy back in SF. Mike…she missed you so much and I look forward to meeting the guy that makes my friend so happy! We have bets out on how much Mary’s cell phone bill will be with her many international calls. The bets are ranging from $500-$1000!

I am also sad to say goodbye to my new friends Bruce and Kathy. I have had such a great time traveling with them, hanging at their house, playing board games, getting to know them and learning from their experiences. I hope to visit them at their new home on the Banks Peninsula. Thanks again for everything!!

Darek…I am going to miss your creative cooking! It was so fun getting to know you better and we need to hangout more in SF and play Modern Art again! I am going to follow up with you on the status of you and “the goddess of love/fairy queen” 🙂

Tomorrow I am taking a bus 6 hour to the west coast to the Franz Joseph Glacier. I will be traveling solo the next week along the South Island. Stay tuned…many new posting to come soon!