Meeting the neighbors

Mornin' mates. Paul took the camera this morning to capture the sunrise over the ocean that he sees each day on the way to work, so I'll try to post that tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I thought I'd catch you up on our activities to date. Over Memorial Day we went on a day sail on the "Spirit of Adventure," a tallship operated by a non-profit group that teaches young people about sailing and the sea (http://www.spiritofadventure.org.nz). We got to help out raising the sails, but our work was cut short when an entire school of young dolphins came to play. The local sailors say they're regulars and like to play their own version of "chicken" by swimming full speed at the boat and waiting to see who turns first. It was amazing to see such beautiful animals up close and their playful spirit was contagious. Of course they moved so quickly that it was difficult to get a good picture of them, but Paul snapped these. The bluff in the background is Bluff Hill where we live in Napier, which makes us and the dolphins neighbors.


I thought this would be as close as you could get to dolphins in the wild, but now I'm told that on the South Island you can swim with the dolphins in their native, natural habitat as well as go whale watching. We definitely plan to do that soon.