Seal Swim

Well, this trip has seemed both long and short at the same time, and now we're at the end of it. Our final activity on our extensively planned itinerary was to swim with the seals in Kaikoura, our last stop before returning to Christchurch to fly back to Melbourne. I thought it sounded fun; I love animals, so does Kane, we'll get up close to them and oggle, fun right? As seems to happen more than I'd like it to, there were other obstacles that I was either unaware of or just didn't think of that were significantly detrimental to the fun that I thought we'd have on this particular adventure.

Kane took some of my crazy Thai Dramamine equivalent tablets this morning in hopes of warding of any potential sea sickness. I had envisioned that we'd board some large boat, put on wet suits and take a dip when we saw some seals swimming around, then re-board the ship to hunker down and shake off the chill of the water on our way back. It went sort of like that, but not really. We arrived at the seal swim store and were outfitted with wet suits, fins, masks and snorkels on the spot. We had to leave all belongings at the store or risk them getting wet. Cameras were even recommended to stay, so I don't have a single picture of this endeavor. We then took a 10 minute bus ride out to the beach and hopped into a speedboat. There were a dozen of us in total on this trip, mostly people our age-ish and one man with his two young boys (10ish?).

We boat out only about half a mile to a large rock in the water where a colony of seals likes to perch during the day (they feed at night and bask and sleep in the day). The seals we were going to see are eared fur seals; they have external ears and are kept warm by their fur rather than blubber like a true seal. Apparently, this type of seal has more in common biologically with a dog than a common seal, which I thought was interesting. They were hunted to near extinction over a hundred years ago, but now they're protected and are doing better. We even saw some tiny dolphins on the way out to the big rock, they swam and jumped just in front of our boat. They were small and cute and so close we could have touched them. Maybe it was a sign that I should try swimming with the dolphins instead...

So, we get to the rock and are allowed to "deboard". This consists of sitting on the edge of the boat and essentially falling backwards into the water, which has always scared me. I like to ease into the freezing water, thank you very much. But, no choice, so I flop in. The water is freaking freezing. It's the same ocean that stalks the coast of CA, and it felt about the same temperature as it does in the Bay or SLO. Ocean people think it's fine, but it's numbingly, hyperventilating-ly freezing to me. I find that in situations like this I tend to cope with bouts of uncontrollable laughter. I laugh hysterically on roller coasters too, and probably while snowboarding, etc. I get in the water just after Kane and I can't stop laughing. I start with the gasping from the shock of the cold and continue straight into insane, involuntary, body wrenching laughter. The other passengers are happily (seemingly happily, anyway) floating along looking for seals while the guides are trying to point out where we should look for the seals from up in the boat.

I couldn't care less about a god damn seal at this point. I am completely freezing and hysterical and seals are really the last thing on my mind. In realizing this fact, I laugh even harder, appearing even more insane. After about 5 minutes I calmed down and started trying to snorkel. When you're not used to it, trying to plunge your face into freezing water and convince your brain that it's ok to breathe normally through a stupid tube attached to your head is a bit of a challenge. I don't think it's quite as bad when the water is warmer for some reason; maybe there's just less to get used to. So for the first 15 minutes or so, I basically can't put my head underwater without starting to hyperventilate - short, quick, labored breaths through the stupid snorkel for about 10 seconds until I would surface to see where I was.

So I do that for a while. I saw a seal swim by once or twice, but hardly noticed. I look up and Kane is making an awful face; he's clearly feeling sick. The waves weren't crashing on us, but the water was swishing us around quite a bit and he was not doing well. I floated with him for a bit, trying to be comforting (not much else to do), then he decided he'd better ask to be taken to shore to avoid swimming in a puddle of his own vomit. He went to the shore and I stayed in by myself (with the others, but with no one particular person to hang with - sad face).

It was good he went shore, because shortly after that, we all got back in the boat and moved to another side of the rock where there were a few more seals swimming around. This location was seriously rockin' in the tide. The swells would move us up 6-10 feet and side to side even more, he wouldn't have stood a chance here. I was even starting to feel queasy by the end of it. Although being banished to sit alone on the shore in the wind while soaking wet for 45 minutes probably wasn't his favorite thing to be doing for the rest of the trip either, poor Kane.

At this new location I actually saw some seals as they swam around and under the group of us. They were very cute; about 3/4 the size of me or so (on average) with huge round eyes. They would come rather close to us (we were allowed to let them touch us if they wanted to, but I was fine with them just being close) and swim with unmatched agility and ease. They would play with each other, swimming all tangled together and biting at each other's faces. They're pretty cool animals and I was happy to have gotten some close up views. I did find it funny the juxtaposition of humans swimming and seals swimming - we're all in our gear flailing at the surface bumping into each other with flippers and stray elbows while they swim with grace and precision anywhere they want. It cracked me up, but lord knows I didn't want to start laughing again...

The other thing I wasn't really ready for was the seaweed. I'm not sure why kelp is one of the most terrifying substances in the entire world, but it is. And being carried helplessly toward a giant mass of slimy plant tentacles makes me react like someone would to a seething monster in a horror movie. I really felt like Scooby-doo escaping a man in a ghost costume. Stupid seaweed. I swear the only comfort in all of this was thinking about blogging about it later. The worse time we have, the better the blog entry, which I guess is a nice silver lining.

So, retrospectively, it was pretty much a waste of $80 each for us, but that's yet another thing you don't know until you try it. Next time we will rethink the water sports with Kane - and I'll make sure the temperature is more favorable before I pay someone to freeze my buns off for two hours.

Tomorrow we drive to Christchurch (which they abbreviate Chch, which I love) and verrry early the following morning we fly back to Melbourne to resume our uneventful couch potato lives. Thank goodness, I'm exhausted.