Sailing the Open Seas

Alright, we had a great day of sailing the not-so-high seas today. It really was an amazing experience, from the weather to the scenery to the great food and friends and even sailing and crewing the boat ourselves! We signed up for a 6 hour tour on the Gungha II captained by Mike. We were picked up at the wharf in Russell a little after 10:00 and Courtney almost immediately took the wheel while a few of us others raised the main sail and got us moving. Mike let us do a lot of the work, which was fun and not really work – raising, lowering and adjusting the sails, steering, etc... We weren't but 30 minutes out when we encountered our first pod of playful dolphins! There wasn't much in the way of acrobatics, but they're still amazing and entertaining to watch. The whole pod, 5 or 6 of them, would swim along with us right under the bow of the boat. It was really cool being only a few feet away! We saw a second pod a little while later too. We anchored up in a beautiful bay and went ashore for a hike up to the top of one of the islands for amazing views. We got to kayak around a little bit before lunch back on the boat and then we started to make our way back to town. Mike was a great guy to talk to. He and his wife are expats from Victoria, BC that have been running these day sailing trips in NZ for 16 years now. He typically runs from October to May in NZ and then hops up to Fiji for the off season. Not a bad way to spend your time I suppose – I'm thinking of a future career...