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Published: September 18th 2006
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Peter getting in
With Max at the front. To see images as a slide show, select Full Image and click on the numbers to scroll through. Introduction
So what do you do when you want to find your dose of serenity in South Australia, but the path is water, not land? Well the hikers treated themselves to a 2 hour family tour of the Adelaide Dolphin Sanctuary in sea kayaks this Sunday.
How to get there
We booked our tour through a company called
Blue water Sea Kayaking and met Phil and Pip at Garden Island boat ramp, which is about 10 minutes from Port Adelaide. The fee was $100 for the guided tour of the Dolphin Sanctuary for two adults and two children. The Adelaide Dolphin Sanctuary, established in 2005, is the first of it's kind in the world. You can learn more about it at the
Adelaide Dolphin Sanctuary web site, including it's
objectives.
What happened ...
The tour was scheduled for 2.30pm and we took Max along with us to make a foursome. It was such a long wait! The forecast was for a hot day (well for September) of 29 degrees with a northerly wind, but this eased somewhat by the time it came for us to hit the water. We were supplied with all the gear we needed, including life vests and water proof boxes to
Dan keen to start
While Pip adjusts the position of the seat so that I can operate the pedals that work the rudder store our keys and camera. Before we even hit the water, we saw a pod of dolphins swimming past the boat ramp.
Working a kayak was easy. Dan and Max held front positions in the two kayaks, and Peter and I took the rear. We had safety lessons, paddling lessons and later, sharp turning lessons. There were pedals for the rear paddler to use to work the rudder.
We had the opportunity to explore 'little Amazon', as Phil called it. It was a small creek, lined with mangroves, running off the main river. The water was very calm here and it was similar to entering a different time and place. Unfortunately, the tide was higher than expected, so we couldn't go as far down the creek as we would normally, as we would be hitting our heads on the boughs of the mangroves!
We saw quite different animals -
seagulls,
pied cormorants,
pelicans,
jumping mullet,
sooty terns,
ibis,
egret and of course,
dolphins. After we came out of 'little Amazon' we bumped into another group of 3 adults and 1 young dolphin. We followed them back to the boat ramp and then, as they approached the jetty, one of the
The group
In a shady place where we had our lessons on how to make a tight turn so we could go up the smaller creeks adults made a
giant leap, completely out of the water - it was such an impressive way to finish off our tour.
Dan says ...
Kayaking was so much better than I expected - it was easier than I thought and much more fun! The boat moved like a snake in the water slipping along easily. Paddling was a bit like swimming, moving one arm up and the other down. I paddled quite vigorously as we were the last ones to get into the water. We got to catch up with the group so I engaged a conversation with the group.
Parts of the tour were in the wind. This made it a little choppy, so the kayak went up and down and it was harder to paddle. When boats went past there were waves - we had to move so that the waves hit the front of the kayak rather than the side (which might turn it over).
Phil told us that the fish, river and birds were a bit lazy today so he didn't think we would see any dolphins. But he was wrong - we saw a whole pod of dolphins, 4 strong!
I would like to go on the ship's graveyard tour next and then have a self-guided tour, where they give you a kayak and off you go and explore! I would really like to kayak of my own one day - with paddles.
Yours truly
Dan
This week's joke:
Q: What do you call a ghost's Mum and Dad?
A: Trans-parents
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Andrea
non-member comment
Joke for Dan
Hi Dan Here's one I heard at fitness class on Saturday morning: Q: What do you get if you cross a chicken with a centipede? A: Drumsticks for everyone at Christmas Thanks for the post - this looks like a good one to do with Laura and Julia (Laura loves aquatics)