As I travel through New Zealand, new vistas open up each day, with their own arching skies, scenery and stories, and I fall in, arms and heart outstretched. Today, I am in a little one-street, no-streetlight town on the shores of Lake Tekapo. Perched on my bed, I can look out and see the lake – a stretch of impossible blue – a milky turquoise, cradled between brown and gold mountains, its banks interspersed with forest green pine. It is the most elegant palette. The lake gets its cloudy color from rock granulated by glacial action and acts as a perfect mirror to the sky – greys, blues, clouds, rain, sunsets changing its moods and mysteries like quicksilver.
I feel so incredibly lucky to be here – my spirit free and wheeling, following a map of my own device, scheduling my next stop as I please, jumping on buses, planning on the fly. I have no idea what the future holds – neither the one that is close at hand nor the one that yawns ahead but the journey demands living in the moment – each day, a new town, a new adventure. I am content.
So far, a favorite experience has been my encounter with a pod of 400 dolphins. I have no pictures since I was treading water in the icy Pacific Ocean but I hope my sophomoric attempt here will capture something of the magic I experienced yesterday in a sleepy, seaside town called Kaikoura. A 2.5 hr train ride from Christchurch, along rolling country-side and craggy Pacific coastline, Kaikoura is known for its abundant marine life and heavenly ocean views. Dusky dolphins, sperm whales, albatross and fur seals thrive in this part of the ocean because of deep-sea canyons as well as the mix of warm and cool currents, both of which nurture food sources for these magnificent creatures. I signed up for a dolphin encounter two months before I actually got there and had no idea what to expect.
I was more than a little nervous about my first open ocean experience, squeezed into an absolutely ridiculous wet suit (with a hood), blue and yellow flippers and equipped with an orange snorkel. The suit is apparently meant to be a little snug and I looked like a very sweaty Michelin man when I was done jumping about (and cursing) trying to get it on, my arms and legs almost at right angles like a puppet with all its strings entangled. Also, I had given myself a wedgie but apparently that was a sign that I had it on right! Crikey, as New Zealanders say. With assurances of “it’s going to be fine in the water, mate” ringing in my ears, I put a sock in it and hauled myself boat wards.
Cut – to me – sitting on a little platform at the bottom of the catamaran, flanked by nine other swimmers, our flippers jutting off the edge. A cloud of anticipation settled around us like bees. We were all waiting for the captain to be sure of the dolphins’ position and blow a short bleep on his horn to let us know that the propellers were off and we risked no bodily harm by launching ourselves into the water. Since these dolphins are wild and roam the seas freely, the crew must locate pods based on experience and knowledge. Once a pod is spied, the signal goes off, the swimmers enter the water and play, before the dolphins move on to their next destination. Then, the swimmers straggle back to the boat and go on to the next few spots where the pattern repeats itself.
When I first spied a pair of dolphins in the water, my heart almost stopped. I clutched it. Holy shit, I breathed. I saw a couple, swooping down and curving up in perfect unison, like dolphins do in National Geographic videos. They disappeared for a few seconds and appeared again…and again and again…till one threw herself into the air, executed a perfect back-flip and fell back beside her traveling companion. Others appeared and within a flash, the ocean around us was a web of spinning, weaving, wandering shapes. We were in the thick of a pod.
BLEEEEEEEP!
…push off into the icy arms of the Pacific swell. It was almost a blessing to be in water and escape the heat of rubber. We had been told that dolphins live in a world of sound and since the ones we were meeting are wild, will not have anything to do with us, unless we entertain and attract them by squeaking and squealing, diving and dipping like they do. The ocean before me was a storm of rubber-encased adults making ludicrous, high-pitched noises – aiaiaiaiaiai, somebody intoned…piku-piku-piku, somebody else squealed… coocooo cooocoo…hihihihihihiihih..
keekeekeekeekeekeekee – as we swam in a preposterous tribe towards the dolphins. We all seem to have left our inhibitions on board, driven by a pulsing collective desire to have a close encounter with these playful, graceful, incredible creatures.
And, it is truly the most extraordinarily moving experience when you are floating there, acting like an idiot, and the atmosphere around you changes suddenly ever so slightly and several dark, gleaming bodies come up for air right beside you like friendly ghosts or circle you lazily just where the water meets the sky or pass in front of you in leaping droves or land beside you with a splash and grace of an accomplished acrobat. They never touch you but are less than a hair’s breadth from your body…so close that you can hear them blowing air out of their blow holes as they breathe…so close that you feel the spray on your face as they dive and whirl….so close that you can see where their bodies are entering and leaving the water…where the line divides their bodies into polished gray and gleaming white…their lovely dolphin smiles. The thrill, the magic, the incredible joy of being so close to something untamed and so mysteriously beautiful never fizzled out. Each time the captain’s horn bleeped and I pushed off into their midst, I felt fireworks going off inside me. Oh! I couldn’t help but beam (and lose my snorkel as a result)…I couldn’t help but have a serious lump in my throat and tears in my eyes…I couldn’t help but feel in every fibre of my being the cliched, but incredibly heartfelt, emotion of being so deeply happy to be so alive.
“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” — Henry Miller
I’m tired..
“There is no justice in this world … What there is in this world, I think, is a tendency for human errors to level themselves like water throughout their sphere of influence … There’s the possibility of balance.” — Leah, in Barbara Kingsolver’s Poisonwood Bible
“The power is in the balance; we are our injuries, as much as we are our successes.” — Adah, in Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible
“…Don’t try to make life a mathematics problem with yourself in the center and everything coming out equal. When you’re good, bad things can still happen. And if you’re bad, you can still be lucky.” — Anatole to Leah, during their desperate attempt to escape the plague of the ants in Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible
39 ways to live + not merely exist -
Came across this as i pondered new year resolutions for 2010. lovely.
“My mother died when I was quite young, and certainly a motherless girl will come up wanting in some respects, but in my opinion she has a freedom unknown to other daughters. For every womanly fact of life she doesn’t get told, a star of possibility still winks for her on the horizon.” — Orleanna Price in Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible.
Nostalgia…its officially been a week since I moved from New York to London!
on a new york city night. (via matt.hintsa)
just back from a proper jaunt with the boggies ard holland park which is incredibly pretty, earthy and, it seems, a bit too not-urban for my dog. Or maybe it’s just that nothing smells familiar. Have to remember that bassets are creatures of habit, and I need to set up a route for them over the next couple of weeks so it all becomes a little less daunting. Misha was quivering like a tuning fork most of the walk, sniffing and shivering; my more laid-back raka sneaking a couple of pebbles and licks at left-over new year reveller’s puke. yech. she is going to lick my face w that same tongue.