dolphin sex and swimming with seals

In Kaikoura. The weather cleared up beautifully and I went on the Swim with Seals trip. It was fantastic. From the boat, on the way out, we saw a small pod of little dolphins. They were jumping around and showing off a bit. And, since I witnessed a bit more than I had planned, I know that at least two of them were having sex . Dolphins are quite promiscuous, and, along with humans, are one of the only species that have recreational sex. The female dolphin can store the sperm of more than one male in her body and then, if she decides to get pregnant, can choose which sperm to use.

We swam with the seals for about an hour, right next to the rocks where they were sunning themselves. The water was quite cold so we had on fairly thick wet suits with hoods, along with fins, masks and snorkels. I can't believe how close we got to them. They were quite interested in us. We didn't have to entertain them, our mere presence seemed to be intriguing enough (and I suppose in our wetsuits etc., we probably looked pretty amusing and somewhat seal-like). Sometimes, one would just float in the water and stare at me. They would jump off the rocks into the water and swim around a bit. The pups were hopping in and out of the surf. One of the other swimmers had his fin come off and a seal grabbed it in his mouth and took off with it. The guy had to chase the seal a bit to get it back. Which, I'm sure the seal made easy, as there is no way to swim as fast the seal, should it choose to go as fast as they are capable of.

I only had 4 pictures left on my waterproof camera and I didn't do a very good job of taking them since I thought that, like the dolphin swimming, it would be over really quickly and there would be limited opportunities as the seals raced by. Too bad, as there were so many great shots during the hour that I would have loved to have taken. I'll just have to keep them tucked securely in my memory as it was a great experience and I highly recommend it to any one who gets the chance.