Finding Flipper

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Day 125
8th January

After an awful night’s sleep we were situated above a nightclub in a filthy hostel and had to endure the most dreadful autotune pop pap mostly consisting of Rhiana and the black eyed peas bumping through the floorboards till 4am I was feeling somewhat less than refreshed, Liz however managed to sleep through though I have no idea how, it’s almost like she has an off switch hidden about her person and for the life of me I cannot find it. Although I was tired we were both REALLY looking forward to this moment let’s face it, it’s not every day you get to meet a dolphin! We were a little apprehensive as we knew the weather wasn’t ideal and could prevent us from being able to go out on the boat, these things can’t be helped but we would have been gutted.

Liz phoned ahead and they gave us the all clear, we were delighted and went to the place and checked in. We waited for around 20mins and bought a cheap waterproof camera, they took us through to be fitted for wetsuits, I felt like James Bond and I was married to Bo Derek and we were being fitted in superhero spacesuits about to go on some adventure though we probably looked more like washed up seals, I must say I didn’t like wearing the wetsuit hat part as it was very tight around my neck and made me feel like I was being choked, we watched an information film and were given safety tips. We all piled into a bus and were driven down to the shore then they loaded 16 of us onto a boat I was so excited by this point that I could hardly contain it and boy oh boy was the sea choppy! It was like being on a fairground ride, I must have been very annoying as I thought it was brilliant but there was a poor lady sat opposite us who started being sick within five minutes of setting sail and Liz was being very quiet and went a funny colour, we sailed around for more than half an hour looking for the dusky dolphins and eventually some were spotted. Within seconds everyone except the poor sick lady was in the water we were told to sing and make lots of noise as the dolphins like that sort of thing and I heard gurgling renditions of “we’re walking in the air” and “under the sea” going by, I swam around making tooting noises and wasn’t getting much dolphin attention probably because I sounded utterly ridiculous until I changed tactics and started making whale noises and they went totally spastic for that, all of a sudden I was surrounded by six or so dusky dolphins all checking me out and swimming around me in circles and under me, they liked it when I followed them too they were so close I could have stroked them but I didn’t touch any of them as they might not like it and I have quite a knack for getting bitten by things or struck by lightning. I was having so much fun with the dolphins I almost forgot to take any pictures so I continued groaning and squeaking and started taking snaps, the water was quite dark and choppy and the dolphins move so fast that it was very tricky I had to just point the camera in their general direction and hope for the best.

I must say I had an absolute blast I can totally see why this is for some people the one thing they have to do before they die, dolphins are absolutely captivating and words cannot describe just how beautiful they are, i had a moment in the water when I just thought “hang on a minute... Ellory you are swimming around making whale noises at dolphins... and they like it.” What a trip! It was the same feeling I got when I was at La Senda Verde and I was making friends with monkeys, it gives you a butterflies feeling and you wish that moment could last forever.

I kind of started losing track of time and distance from the boat and realised when I popped my head up that I was furthest away, not being the strongest swimmer in the world and with the water being so choppy this was probably not wise so I started to head back, the boat kept moving around to pick up the other swimmers so it took me quite a while to get back but I managed it, Liz was already back on the boat and then only a couple more were still out, apparently the dolphins had moved on but I was surrounded by them so I like to think they just liked me the whale noise man best. Back on the boat I realised that many more people had succumbed to sea sickness, the boat driver went on looking for dolphins for us to go back in and he found them but by then EVERYONE was being sick myself and Liz included, it was quite a sight, a boat full of sixteen people all with green faces and buckets between their knees. I think only a couple of people went back in and that was for just five minutes.

We head back to the shore and everyone got changed, we were told to go to the reception desk to pick up an information pack, Liz went there and I had a mooch around the shop, when Liz joined me she told me we had been refunded $90 as we didn’t get to spend much time with the dolphins. We were really touched by that and very surprised as we understood that the company has no control over the weather or in fact the dolphins as they are 100% wild, we had great time swimming with them even the short time we spent with them was a dream come true... mind you ninety bucks back was sweet! So we spent it on hoodies with dolphins on them (score) we also noticed some really nice framed photographs for sale and I think we will probably buy one when we get home, it will have to be then as we have no way of lugging it round.

We can totally recommend the company we went with they are called “Encounter” and we found them to be extremely professional, very passionate about the animals and the staff obviously really enjoy what they do... plus they gave us ninety bucks back so we super like them.

We left encounter and headed towards Christchurch, we had to drive pretty fast as we needed to pick up the bit of wing mirror that was so cruelly stolen from us a few days before... and guess what... yep you guessed it they ordered the part for the wrong side. I heard Liz say on about three separate occasions that it was for the driver’s side, she even phoned them to check they had the correct side and they assured her it was ok, I thought she was being neurotic but I’ll eat my hat she was right, they really were that stupid. The manager gave Liz his card and said that the rental company should give him a call as it was their error not ours which at least was decent of him.

We drove around Christchurch for a bit looking for somewhere to stay and happened across a pretty swish looking motel, we went in to check the price and yep it was quite expensive but we were both bushed and after the last hostel we wanted somewhere with at least a bit of class, this one had a spa bath which was all the class we needed! How’s that for swish eh? I’m still not really sure what the point of a spa bath is but it sounded good.

A big thank you to Ginny and Ella, Laura and Rob, Gillie and Simon, Karen and Simon, Mike and Chris this was most definitely one of the highlights of our trip, we had an amazing day swimming with the dolphins!

Love Ellz x

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