Saturday, 26 Feb, 2005

Hello Flipper!

      The day started out as normal as any other day on this trip so far. Dirk and I went for coffee to get our brains firing on a few more cylinders before heading off to Hot Water Beach, Whitianga's (locally pronounced Fitianga) primary tourist attraction. Along the way we picked up Katia, Dirk's...uhm, present interest, and the reason he happened to be heading in my direction in the first place with an empty seat in his car.
      So the three of us drove out to Hot Water Beach and sat in the sand until low tide, watching the crowd slowly grow around the lava rocks where the thermal pools were burried under the sand. The idea is that when one finds a hot spot, one proceeds to dig a hole big enough for a body or two, and then plops down into one's own personal seaside hot tub. That's what the postcards and guide books imply anyway. The reality of it turned out to be a huge crowd of tourists, many armed with shovels, digging kiddy-pool-sized holes in the approximate vicinity of the lava rocks, and then wondering why they were filling with cold sea water. The others in the crowd looked like gold miners staking out their plots as they waited for the tide to pull back as far as possible.
      As I wandered through the crowd with Irish John (who I met a few weeks ago in River Valley, and who happened to be walking down the beach with his travelling buddy Irish Paul) my feet suddenly crossed over a patch of sand unmistakably warmer than the rest. I stopped in my tracks and discreetly wiggled my feet down into the sand as the surf gently swept in and out, helping my efforts. When I was about ankle deep, I found the source of the heat. And I knew it instantly. My feet were suddenly burning with the fire of a thousand suns! I quickly jumped out of my tiny foot-cauldron and waved John over. Naturally, he did exactly as I had done when I pointed out the warm spot. And naturally we both laughed hysterically when he reacted just the same way. We repeated the process numerous times, trying to find just the right depth for a happy medium in the temperature.
     After going back for the others on the beach, and after each of us had had a chance to scald the soles of our feet in the boiling hot water, we decided to investigate a few of the other beaches in this part of the Coromandel Penninsula.
     Dirk, Katia, and I headed off to find Cathedral Cove, which John and Paul had told us about. "Park at Hahei Beach" they said, "and walk the 1 hour track to Cathedral Cove along the coast." So we drove. And we parked. And we walked down the beach towards where the trail began, when a woman in front of me said something excitedly (in some other language) to her man and pointed out to sea. "Ahh," I thought, "it's nice to see people get excited over the little things like that." I myself sometimes feel jaded to the point that the small things don't impress me as they once did. But then I noticed how the beach was filled with people. And not just on the beach, but a steady scattering of people that continued right out into the calm surf and beyond. And the woman was right. Dolphins! About three of them from what I could see, swimming among the people. Coming up for air, swimming around in circles, racing from one side of the crowd to the other. From the beach, we could watch the swimmers crowd to one side or the other based on the last relative position of the dolphins like a tidal shift of bodies. The dolphins would surface in one spot, and then dive below the people and come up again on the other side of the crowd.
      Watching this from the shore, it gave me the impression of that older kid in the schoolyard with the love for kids. Not like Michael Jackson, but like a playground monitor who plays on the college baseball team, and is studying education. Or the youngest Uncle at his nephew's 10th birthday party playing Tag with the kids knowing full well they'll never catch him unless he lets them. But the kids chase him around for hours just the same, neither one seeming to get tired.
      My initial thought was that this must be one of those "Swim With The Dolphins" attractions. That there must be a net out there under those buoys and these people in the water paid $75-$100 each for this. See what I mean about being jaded and unable to enjoy the little things? But the longer I watched these playful gentle creatures toying with the crowd, the more I realized that these were not penned-up captives comanded to do the bidding of a trainer. They were wild, and they had come to play. We watched them for a few more minutes splashing with their tails, bobbing up for air, and at one stage one or two of them jumped clear out of the water to the delight of the crowd in and out of the water. And then, not wanting to lose the daylight, we set off on our walk to the other cove, since that's what we were here to do anyway.
      An hour later, we were at Cathedral Cove. Over the centuries, a huge tunnel had been carved out of the sandstone cliffs. At least 50 feet high, and 100 feet long. We walked through the tunnel, feeling the cold, soft sand on our feet from one beach to the other. Katia couldn't stop smiling, as she thought this was the most beautiful place in the world. I didn't see much difference in the beach itself from the Hot Water Beach we were at earlier. But I will admit that the setting was gorgeous. Soft sandy beaches looking out to a cluttered scattering of islands on the horizon. It was fun to think that these spots along the coast are much the same as they were when Capt. Cook (at that time a mere Lt.) came by in the HMS Endevor over 200 years ago.
      We hung out on the beach at Cathedral Cove for nearly an hour before starting the treck back to Hahei in time to get back before dark. When we reached the carpark, we noticed a ski boat pulling a wake boarder around out in the bay. And behind him...the dolphins were still out playing around, chasing the wake boarder. Most of the rest of the earlier crowd of swimmers had left. The dolphins had worn them out. It took me a few seconds before the thought made it from the inner recesses of the idea section of my brain and worked itself past all the "no, don't say that" and "that's a foolish idea" filters that mature, adult society had put in place over the years to actually vocalize itself from my mouth. "Uhm...so why aren't we out there swimming with them?" I asked.
"Do you wanna?" Dirk asked.
"Well, yeah!" I said. Katia was already down the hill and into the water before Dirk and I had even gotten into our swimmers.
      The sun was beginning to set behind me as I swam out through the surf, and by the time I got out to where Katia was 30-50 meters off shore, it had turned the sky to a fire orange that lit up the clouds above and behind the mountains that ran along the coast to the west. The wakeboarder had fallen off again, and the boat idled nearby as he paddled for the rope and twisted himself into the right direction. The dolphins, having been drawn to the moving boat's motors, were now nowhere to be seen. At this point I also realized that Dirk had not yet joined us, and looked back to find him standing on the beach watching us from the shore. Slightly confused by his behavior, but glad to see that he was safe, I turned back to find the dolphins. The boat gunned the throttle, and the boarder was pulled along for a few meters before letting go and splashing down again. No Dolphins. The boat gunned its engine again, and this time the rider slowly got to his feet and they sped away. 30 seconds later, he fell again off in the distance. If the dolphins were still following the boat, they were far away from us now.
      I don't know why, but it was then that I decided that I knew how to call the dolphins to us. I made an upside-down cup with my hands and made a cannon-ball sized splash in the water in front of me. Three times. I looked at Katia and we both laughed. "Don't you know how to talk to dolphins?" And we dipped our closed-lipped mouths in the water and made squeeky dolphin noises. I even threw out a "Heeeeerrre Dolphin Dolphin Dolphin!" when I came up for air. We continued to tread water for a few more minutes, splashing around and squeeking, wondering if our efforts were in vain, when a dolphin surfaced about 15 feet away from us. Announcing his presence with a rush of air from his blowhole that made us jump. Have you ever tried to jump while treading water in the open sea? It comes off more like a stiff body epileptic twitch. Seconds later he surfaced again. 7 feet closer. Another rush of air. Another epileptic twitch, and he was down again. Katia and I grabbed hands, like when your favorite team had just won the championship and you hug the person nearest to you. But we quickly realized that we needed our hands to keep from sinking. The dolphin surfaced just to our right this time. Close enough to see his eye, black as the night sea, and a small scar just behind, on his left side, but still just out of reach. He was circling us, checking us out. And certainly giving us a thrill. Then he was gone. And we were joined by another swimmer. I tried not to think about how long I had been treading water as I went back to making cannonball splashes in the water. The dolphins were now about 20 feet off shore entertaining the small crowd there. Instinctively I started swimming towards them, but stopped after a few strokes, knowing they would be gone by the time I got close. 10 seconds later, they were swimming straight towards me. At least 10 of them! "Oh God!" I thought, "I'm about to be run down by a stampeding school of dolphins!"
      I did my best to stop in my tracks, which meant treading water some more. The herd came at me, leaving me paralized with awe. Suddenly they were surfacing in front of me, at the same time that others were surfacing behind me. Some swam past me to either side, while some dipped under me in the bottomless depths. I could feel the current of the water begin to dance as they glided past me on all sides. And then they were gone.
      I rode the wave of adreneline back to the shore where it was just after sunset and growing darker by the minute. Exhausted, out of breath, and thus disoriented, I staggered out of the surf and began jogging the wrong way along the beach towards the car. Without my glasses, I had a hard time making out which of the figures on the beach were my friends in the growing darkness. Eventually I found them. Katia had beat me back to the shore, and Dirk explained that he wasn't a very storong swimmer and quickly realized that he wouldn't be able to tread water for very long, let alone swim out as far as we had been.
      But I had completed another one of life's little adventures, being careful to recognize it when presented to me. And I had swum with wild dolphins in the open sea, at sunset. Beautiful.

"The voyage of discovery lies not in finding new landscapes, but in having new eyes."
--Michael Proust

Props to my Peeps, and Peace on the Mothership,
Chris