We have booked a 2 hour boat tour with Coast up Close, operated by Tony, a local skipper, who will take us around the coast and show us the wildlife and landscape. We did it over the internet (what a surprise!) in July, and have a map of where the tour meeting place should be located. It should be at the end of the main wharf. But as we left the tender, we didn’t see any Coast up Close office on the dock, or boat in the harbor. It’s early, we know, so we figure maybe he’ll be here later. Then we get a copy of the town map, and Coast up Close is no longer listed on the map….hmmmm…maybe he’s just saving money and isn’t advertising anymore….maybe he’s not in business? We keep our positive thoughts and hope we can find him when our 10:15 meeting time comes around.
As it turns out, our nerves were unfounded, Tony is – as promised – at the end of the dock with his boat – waiting for his 19 passengers to board (obviously, he’s not advertising on the town map any longer!).
We jump aboard the little fishing boat and get situated inside the cabin. This will be a great intimate tour – quite unlike the ship tours we watch going out into the bay jam packed with people. Tony only takes 19 people out at a time, that’s all he’s allowed if he goes out of the bay into the Pacific, so we’ll have plenty of room to watch for nature on the bow and the upstairs seating area (the boat has a capacity of around 35 passengers).
We end up with 16 people – 2 didn’t show – but we’re off at 10:30 on 
the dot and cruising the harbor. Tony is great – a local who grew up and has lived here virtually all his life (except for a few years in Britain and Europe playing professional rugby). His mom is alive and lives on one of the coves, he lives on another, and his commute is a 10 minute skiff ride to the boat, then a sail over into Akaroa to pick up tourists. Nice job!
Being a local, and being on the water (and in it – he dives quite a bit), 
he is really knowledgeable about all things Akaroa and nature. I cannot even begin to remember 1/4 of the stuff he told us. He goes over the history of Akaroa (that’s where I got most of the intro history on the morning blog post), talks about the earthquakes (they had 2 yesterday- Yikes! – and have had over 7000 aftershocks), nature (he knows every bird, fish, dolphin, whale, penguin, whatever, you see it, he knows it) – and all of this while he’s got the boat just motoring away—he is a crew of 1-- and he’s standing up on the bow talking to us! Love the confidence!
Two hours of complete fascination. First of all it is an absolutely, picture perfect day. Tony says he’s not seen the water this flat calm hardly ever (thank you to the water gods – Cathy is bowing down to you). The sun is out, it’s really pleasant out here on the water as we watch the rolling pasture land hills dotted with houses fade away behind us, and the cliffs, bays and gorges start to appear all along the coastline.
As we go further out toward the Pacific, we start looking for Hector’s dolphins, the smallest dolphin in the world, and only found in New Zealand. We aren’t having much luck, which Tony doesn’t understand, unless they are possibly feeding. So we’ll keep looking, but in the meantime we keep sailing into little coves with caves etched out of the stone walls, and secluded beaches where some canoe and kayak folks are launching. All along with Tony’s narrative about growing up here, the nature and the history of the rock formations all around us.
We stop along side some fur seals (sea lions), who have just had their pups. They are stinky! But they are really cute – the pups just lying there looking at us! We can get really close – and they still just lie there with those big doleful eyes. Aw….
We keep heading out, searching for dolphins and penguins. There are the little blue penguins here – again the smallest in the world. We finally do find some penguins swimming around – they are too cute! (We’ve got tons of video too, but we’ll have to load that later, when we really have bandwidth!)
It’s gorgeous out here, and we just keep tooling around looking at the amazing landscape and basking in the sun.
On our way back in, we finally find some dolphins who are willing to play with us. They are so cool – these little bullet shaped objects come torpedoing up to the boat, then go swimming right underneath the hull. They are wicked fast and just seem like they are having a blast playing in front of us. Of course we have awesome video of these guys too – but that will have to wait for bandwidth as well! For now, you can get an idea from the pictures below.
We head back to the pier, happily sun drenched and nature satiated! We climb up the ladder to the pier…
…as Tony tells us that the freshest fish can be found at Murphy’s on the dock – and to try their BBQ fish sandwich. We’re looking for lunch – so that’s the perfect recommendation for us! Thanks Tony – for an awesome Coast up Close tour and food rec! We’ve got our afternoon planned now!
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