Swimming with dusky dolphins

Posted by: Wink | January 25, 2011

Swimming with dusky dolphins

This morning we arose at 5am and headed out of South Bay at Kaikoura to swim with the dusky dolphins. We got into our wetsuits, hoods, masks, snorkels and fins and boarded a small boat that took us about 40 minutes out into the bay. The dusky dolphins are wild – they live here because there is a huge deep trench offshore that provides lots of squid for them to eat. Once we found the pod, the captain blew a whistle and we all jumped in with the dolphins. It was pretty wild – dolphins were rushing past within arms length, eyeballing us as we swam around making squealing noises through our snorkels (this is supposed to attract them). We got in – and out – several times and it was really quite exciting!

Well, guys, despite having taken a half a bonine, Wink began to feel squeamish halfway through the trip. The swells were rolling and she (as well as a few others on board) struggled a bit during the second half of the trip.

The photos below, hopefully, give you a sense of it. The dolphins move really fast and they jump out of the water, flip and rotate – so getting good photos was quite difficult and we didn’t take an underwater camera. We took a picture of a nearby boat which shows the swimmers in the water with the dolphins.