One of the most special things you can do in life is swim with a dolphin. I don’t care how macho you are or how cool you want to be, you will come away with a warm and fuzzy feeling after the experience.
We set sail early in the morning from Paihia on our small boat the Tutunui. It was worth getting up early as most of the tours hadn’t started yet and the dolphins were in the mood to play.
It didn’t take long for our guides to spot a group of dolphins. There were three dolphin boats working together to scout for dolphins and within an hour, we had them in our sights.
Our captain and guide decided that this group of dolphins weren’t up for playing and decided to move on to look for some more. After working these waters for over a decade, they know their dolphins well and can read their feelings and emotions.
One thing that we love about New Zealand is that they have very high standards when it comes to keeping the dolphins safe. If the dolphins have a baby in the group or if they don’t seem up to swimming with people, they won’t allow us in. They also have a limit on how many boats can be near the dolphins at one time.
We moved on to find our own group of dolphins and had very good luck. We came across a small pod of 4 that happened to have two of the most playful dolphins that our guides knew of. The Midgets. These guys are a couple of smaller bottlenose dolphins, hence their name, and they just love people.
Once our captain and guide surveyed the dolphins to make sure that is was A-OKay for us to go in, we put on our snorkelling gear and hopped in.
In the Bay of Islands, the water is warmer than the other popular spot to see dolphins, Kaikura so we didn’t have to wear wetsuits. We were told that even though the water is a little chilly, they recommend not wearing a wetsuit because it will give us a better experience.
Dolphins can sense people right through to their core. They can feel our heartbeats and read our emotions, if we are in the water with simply our bathing suits, they will feel more comfortable.
It worked.
These guys played with us for almost an hour. They swam through our legs and circled around us, they dove and jumped and had a grand old time! The more we sang, they more excited they got. For some reason if you play and have fun in the water, they react and enjoy themselves even more.
Dave’s rendition of the A-Team made them spin and play with him for a very long time.
By the time we were all back in the boat, the other boats came to check out the dolphins that we had just finished swimming with. They had had their fill by this time though and were already starting to swim away.
Lucky for us we had some great guides that gave us an amazing dolphin encounter.
What a blast!
