Swimming with the Hector dolphins

Hector dolphins are the second rarest Oceanic dolphins after their close cousin the Maui so it was quite a privilege to discover that here in Akaroa you can swim with them. They are also adorable at 1.4m in length and weigh 50kg so rarely can jump out the water. We'd booked onto an eco tour but unfortunately Nick received an email yesterday saying it was cancelled due to a problem with the boat. Luckily we were able to book onto another tour that did have more people on it but it didn't disappoint. We were kitted out in wetsuits and little shoes before having a briefing about the experience. It wasn't long before we were heading out to sea and from the bow of the boat I spotted two dolphins in front of us. They didn't want to interact with the boat though so we carried on searching. We soon came across a pod that seemed more playful and hopped into the water making sure to be at least 2m a part so we don't scare the dolphins. The water was initially very cold but you soon adjust to the temperature. Then for 45 minutes we swam there with them racing in and out between us occasionally coming up for air. The difficulty is that from the water you can only see them when they surface but the people on the boat could see them all the time. They'd be shouting where they are but more often than not we wouldn't catch a sight of them. We did have masks but they said we shouldn't wear them all the time and should only hold them to our eyes to look under when one was near. I couldn't get the hang of this technique and I wish I'd come back to the boat and just put mine on properly. I also took my phone out in a waterproof pouch but while out there I thought it was leaking so had to really pay attention to keeping that above water. I did manage to get some amazing photos with it though so I'm glad I did have it. I will be buying a new pouch though. It was an amazing experience none the less and I'd love to do it with bottlenose or common dolphins in the future who are known to be a bit more playful. The Hector dolphins were inquisitive but they didn't want to come too close really. After being out there for 45 minutes we had to come back in because that's how long you can be with one group at a time. The pod swam infront of the boat almost half the way back to shore before we lost sight of them which was quite exciting to see. We discovered that the other group who went on another boat only saw a couple pf dolphine so it sounds like we had great luck with our pod of 15 or so. We had an amazing day and ended it by grabbing a few things we wished we had bought the day before.Weiterlesen