Swimming With Sea Lions & Dolphins!

Friday May 6

AWESOME. Today is why I set off on the Waggin' Trail adventure. Alan takes a small group of us out to swim with dolphins and sea lions off Jones Island. As the dolphins charge towards you and start playing you don't care about how cold the water is. The water is quite shallow, just a couple of metres, and the dolphins are close enough to touch, rolling over and swimming upside down - if you do the same, they come back & do it again.

The dolphins follow us half a km over to the island itself, surfing the bow wave of the boat. The sea lions rush over and soon they're all playing chasey and checking us out. Can't get into the water fast enough; it's crystal clear and the sea lions & dolphins are all around us.

I'm blown away when one of the younger sealions comes up and gives me a gentle nuzzle on my face mask! It loves having its chin scratched & bumps against me for more nuzzling, just like a big friendly dog. It grabs a bit of seaweed and teases me, wanting to play "catch me". I swear it's laughing. At one point there's a crazy tangle of us - humans and sea lions - all nuzzling, patting and just being silly.

The dolphins race back into the mob and the sea lions chase them a few metres away to the surf, where they all start surf-racing each other and leaping out of the water, coming back occasionally to try and get us clumsy humans to join in. But we're all exhausted; back in the boat for a mug of hot chocolate, then reluctantly heading back to shore.

Smokey's waiting for me on the beach and we walk back to the campsite together, and I think, this is what is possible between animals and humans when we share instead of control, when we can just be together and notice the ways in which we're all the same.

It was exactly like this!

Coming over for a kiss