Dizzy and Delighted in Kaikoura

Kaikoura is one of those places that I didn’t imagine could exist before I arrived.

What I mean by that specifically: I had never before imagined a place where snowy mountains met the sea in such a combination of wild coast and snow-capped crowns. Nor could I have possibly imagined swimming in that ocean the morning after a frosty night ushered in a fresh layer of snow for those toothy mountains.

But that’s the magic of Kaikoura.

My first day exploring Kaikoura was a wind-whipped, hail-filled, shiver-inducing hell. No joke. The wind was fierce, tunneling into my ears despite my ear-warmers, driving the strap of my backpack into my mouth like a punch. The clouds scuttled across the sky like a march of crustaceans, which meant that occasionally a bright burst of sunlight alighted upon me for me a few measly minutes. But it also meant that hail pummeled from the sky on a fairly regular basis.

I walked past Poppy’s Parlor Ice Cream Shop, and all I could do was shudder at the thought.

Thankfully, the next morning dawned bright and sunny. By 8:10 am, I was waiting in line for an activity that scared the hell out of me.

Some backstory: I am totally freaked out by the ocean. Specifically, the idea that there are animals (giant animals) that could swim up underneath me and I would not notice. Or, I would notice, but there would be nothing I could do because they are faster and stronger than me, and more suited to the water.

Some more backstory: I have also never been snorkeling before.

Yet, there I am, waiting in line to get my gear so I can go snorkeling in the wide open ocean near Kaikoura.

Kaikoura is unique ocean-wise because there is a giant underwater canyon just off-shore. This means that less than a kilometer off the coast, the ocean floor steeply drops to depths of more than 4,000 feet deep.

Cold deep-ocean water rises out of the trench bringing with it lots of great nutrients and fish, providing a bountiful habitat for dolphins and whales, which means that marine animals can be found near Kaikoura all year round. All that’s needed to go see them is decent weather (i.e. not like the day before).

The staff handing out the gear and giving the safety briefing remind us several times that just because it’s calmer than the day before doesn’t mean it’s perfect. There is a medium-to-high risk of sea sickness, they chorus. If you’re prone to motion sickness, take medicine!

We hop on a bus and bump over to the bay, where the big crowd of us disperses onto three different boats. Suddenly, it’s a small and intimate tour, a kind guide giving us a safety briefing and the boat puttering out of the bay.

We go sloshing from side to side, bouncing and jerking over the waves. Each dip feels like the start of a roller coaster and I begin to gulp water from my water bottle. I’m not seasick.

But I’m not unaffected either. Up and down and up and down. My skin tingles and I pin my eyes to the horizon. That helps.

So… I’m not a complete idiot. I know my mom gets sea-sick, and I know that a while ago someone experienced told her to put a piece of paper beneath her shirt to banish sea-sickness. Alas, a piece of paper would not help me in this body-squeezing wet suit.

“So has everyone snorkeled before?”

Around me, everyone is nodding and I’m meeting the guide’s eyes with a wince. She can read it in my expression, but she kindly explains the basics and helps me make sure my mask fits. The good news: all the neoprene I’m wearing is extremely buoyant, so I can’t sink even if I wanted to.

“Just breathe through your mouth, and if you get water in your snorkel, take it out of your mouth and let it out.”

Sure, it all sounds so simple.

“And don’t forget to sing. The dolphins come to the one who is the loudest.” Then, she grins. “I find they quite enjoy Old MacDonald had a Farm.“

Let’s recap: I’m alone halfway across the world. I’m in the middle of the ocean (ok, not really, but it’s deep enough that it could be). I’ve never snorkeled before. I’m scared of the ocean (and the creatures that live in it that shall not be named). And I am about to get in the water.

And sing.

Honestly, it’s the singing that kind of saved me. It keeps you breathing.

So the skipper begins to slow the boat. The guide ushers us swimmers to the back of the boat and we sit on the steps, our flipper-clad feet in the cold water. “Put your masks on!”

The boat slows some more. The watchers on the boat (cozy in jackets and scarves and not about to throw themselves into deep ocean) are pointing and exclaiming. “Here they come!”

The horn sounds. The boat has turned off, but it’s still moving. Around me, swimmers slip into the water, or else curve forward into the wake in a dive.

Ok, ok, ok, ok, time to do this.

“Sing!” Calls the guide.

I slip into the water. It rushes up around my face. I bob up and down. I put my head into the water and I start to sing. Ee-ai-ee-ai-oh!

It’s not until my second ee-ai-ee-ai-oh that I realize I’m sucking in air but my head is underwater. There is a brief moment of panic (remember, I’ve never snorkeled before) and I suck in careful breaths until my head clears away a little bit of the certainty that I’m going to choke. Thankfully, singing requires breath, and somehow that’s enough to distract me.

I lift my head, look around, spot the boat nearby and several other swimmers splashing around me. Then, I spot a dolphin fin. Back underwater I go, shouting and singing, and around me the other swimmers do the same.

And there they are: dolphins. They swim around us, beneath us. They come straight toward me and then veer away as if by magic. They move like it’s effortless, chatter to each other as they swarm around us. There aren’t many–perhaps ten–but they weave through the swimmers, their eyes meeting my eyes, their bodies curving and slicing through the aqua-hued water.

The dolphins depart as quickly as they came and when the horn sounds again, we swim back to the boat. But the guide has us take another seat on the back and the boat speeds away in search of more dolphins. Some dolphins follow us, leaping out of the waves, using the wake of the boat to float along in the white water, cresting and sinking.

Five more times the horn sounds and we descend into the water, kicking and flailing and making an awful racket, and the dolphins come, darting around us, curious and playful, despite this tour running year-round for the past 33 years and these dolphins probably having seen a million humans flubbing around in their ocean.

I sing. I breathe. I’m getting salty-seawater in my mouth, probably because I’m smiling and breaking the seal of the my lips on the snorkel. I kick my feet, I spin in circles looking for the dolphins. I lift my head and marvel at the chain of mountains in the distance, blue and white, sprinkled with snow like powdered sugar. My nose leaks snot at an alarming rate and I’m suddenly aware that the water is a bit cold. But I’m too excited, too happy, too awed to think about the cold, to register the chill, to think about the hundreds of feet of deep water below me. I never look straight down (because why would I let that thought shadow this experience? Denial, am I right?)

Up here, on the surface, the sun cuts through the water in streams. It’s a friendly, pale color. Bubbles froth and float. Dolphins twist and twine.

When we climb onto the boat and the guide lets us know that the swimming portion is over, I am ready for it to be over. Mostly because the cold is, you know, cold. My mouth tastes like sea-water and my nose is an icicle on my face. I’m tired. I feel like a wet rag wrung dry. The retreating adrenaline has left me with shaky limbs and, as swimming always does, I feel a small emptiness in my stomach, as though I’ve kicked out all the energy within me. But, I’m also perfectly, happily satisfied. This could not have been better–it exceeded expectations and then some.

So far, the activity has run perfectly–precise, easy, every need and contingency catered too. Here is, unfortunately, where that runs out.

There is nowhere to change on the boat, so we ladies ask the guys to look away and strip down: layer after layer of wet suit, then swim suit. We’re trying to towel off as the boat shifts and sways and throws us back against the seats. I shimmy my underwear on, looking at my feet between the rows of narrow seats. It is very cold, I’m very sticky from saltwater and barely dry. I grab my pants, feeling my head start to rock and sway. It’s stuffy in here. The boat swirls. I try to lift a foot…and suddenly, that’s IT. I have to get out of here. I push past another half-clothed woman and dart for the open back of the boat, sinking onto a bench and yanking out the garishly neon-green bucket kept for emergencies.

I am stronger than this, I think again and again.

I take deep breaths. I look at the horizon. The fresh air, the open sky. It helps.

My will power is stronger than sea-sickness. I am mentally stronger than sea-sickness.

I don’t throw up. But I’m also perched on a bench at the back of the boat in my underwear with a balled up pair of pants in hand.

So, I think it’s a draw.

The slight dizziness, the swaying in my head, it doesn’t entirely go away, but I feel much better. I finish getting dressed, I walk around the boat, looking for more dolphins. Later, as we zoom back to the bay, I’m not about to do any cartwheels, but I can act normal, at least! On land, the slightly wrong, similar-to-reading-in-the-car feeling fades. Though it feels like it’s not far off. Like it’s floating at the edges of my consciousness ready to come swooping back if I swerve too much in the car or spin around in my chair.

Back at the hostel, a soak in the hot tub brings feeling back to my toes. I drink a lot of water, eat some lunch, and then it’s off on another adventure.

More than dolphins, Kaikoura is actually know for it’s whales. You can do whale watching by boat, helicopter, or plane. I wasn’t going to do any whale-watching initially, because the closest you can get to them is via boat, and yet they’re below the water and you’re above, so you might see a tail or the briefest glimpse of a back. And still, they’re at a distance, and I didn’t have any binoculars.

But, some people at the hostel talked me into a whale watching flight. And it was discounted, so what the hell.

I climbed up into the front seat of a seven person plane and we rumbled off down the runway, parallel to the beach. Suddenly, we’re in the air, slicing between the ocean on the right and the chain of snow-capped peaks on the left.

Oh.

Forget about the whales. The views of the mountains have already given me my money’s worth. The pilot turns the plane, taking us toward the ocean horizon. Below, the seafloor falls away and the gradient of aqua, to teal, to blue, to navy unfolds beneath me.

I scan the waves as we fly farther out, as we circle over deep water.

The wind is fierce and the plane sways and buckles, and my eyes skim the ocean, squinting in search of whales. that may or may not be there. A bit of that motion sickness begins to nudge at my mind like a puppy nudges a hand for more pets.

At some points I can make out the pinpricks of dolphins like a group of eyelash curls against the blue of the ocean. But no whales.

The pilot apologizes, reminds us that whales are wild animals and there is no guarantee, then flies us back toward the mountains. We land smoothly, and I’m quite content with my scenic flight. I’ll see my first whale some other day.

Then, the pilot says he’s got an empty seat on the next flight. $20 and I can go again.

I can’t imagine a time when I’ll ever be offered 40 minutes of flight time for $20 nzd, so I go for it depite my dizziness. This time the pilot curves around the coast, giving us stunning views of the peninsula and the rocky coast, then curves out above the ocean.

We scan the seas. It’s like antler shed hunting, when every distant tree branch looks like the forked tines of an antler. In this case, the pilot whales we’re looking for have a white spot on their backs, so every white cap on the waves below has my eyes jerking toward it, convinced it’s a whale.

Suddenly, the pilot makes a joyful exclamation and jerks the airplane into a tight turn. He’s spotted the pod of pilot whales.

By definition, a plane cannot stop to give you a good view, so he spirals, the wings tilted at what feels like at least 40 degrees, as we loop in tight turns. There it is–that lingering, haunting motion sickness rears up like a cobra.

I grab the seat in front of me. I wonder if my eyes have rolled up into the back of my head. I notice, absently, that there is a white bag tucked in the seat back pocket in front of me. I hope it doesn’t come to that.

Another circle. He does four in total.

When the pilot swerves out of the loop, he immediately takes us into another, turning the other way. I rest my head against the vibrating window, lock my eyes on the smudges of white and grey below. They are tiny and blurry with the vibration of the plane and the constant spirals, but they can’t be anything other than whales. To my surprise, the white spots on the whales’ backs appear green as the sun reflects off their skin through a foot or two of blue seawater.

I take deep breaths, awed at the whales below even as my head feels mushy and wobbly.

The pilot switches tact again, doing two more circles the other way, then pulls out and resumes a straight trajectory. Immediately, I feel much better, my heart stuttering with the excitement of seeing my first whales!

The persistent low-grade motion sickness, and it’s sudden swells throughout the day did nothing to detract from the absolute majesty of my experiences. In fact, the slight dizziness has only further removed the day, in my recollections, to something magical and abstract, as though it’s a vividly remembered dream rather than reality.

But, no, I remind myself. It was real. It happened to me. I did it.

And, along with the magic, I feel brave and powerful and confident and more solidly rooted to this beautiful and amazing world.