Day 14 - cold swim

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had the worst night on the whole trip! the hostel was blazing hot last night. our room was quite stuffy, and i probably matched my weight in sweat. add the fact that the hostel is next to one of the busiest pubs in town, and you have one grumpy vin.

but today made up for that. the day started out clear, but slowly built up clouds by late morning. deja and i headed down to the pier for our dolphin swim. thankfully the wetsuits here were full body, and provided a lot more warmth than the ones we used on the rapids.

after a quick safety briefing we boarded the boat with 8 other tourists. we travelled down the length of the bay, finding the occasional pod of dolphins. unfortunately, they were more interested in hunting than playing. we eventually made it to the end of the bay where it meets the pacific ocean. there we found a pod of three dolphins who came alongside the catamaran. i'm quite proud of deja -- who despite being unable to swim, still managed to get in the choppy water with the rest of us. i didn't get a lot of good pictures due to the slow shooting time on my camera and the speed of the dolphins. however, i was able to get within a couple of feet from them. we weren't allowed to touch them, but they still made a few close passes to us. the dolphins appeared to lose interest after about 20 min.

just as the crew called us back on the boat, another pod joined in, and we soon had 8 little dolphins swimming amongst us. they're only about a meter and a half long, but they're fast.

after another 15 minutes or so we piled back on to the boat and headed back to land. once we cleaned up i fell for the old "buy your picture" routine and got an interactive cd as well.

the rain's pouring again outside right now, so i'm hoping our room will be cooler. i'm also hoping my swimming trunks will dry in time because we're flying out to the north island tomorrow.

and fow you rally fans out there, the wrc started a race today out of hamilton, a town we'll be passing through tomorrow afternoon...

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