RE: [Paddlewise] My Thanksgiving Day Close Encounter

Paul Montgomery said
> After paddling around in circles for an hour we both went  
our own way.

One always hopes that the other participant enjoyed the experience too ;-)

We're having a unusually eventful marine-mammal springtime in Auckland. We
have local regional populations of Orca numbering some hundreds of
individuals, but it usually makes the radio if Orca either come into the
inner harbour or come and play with kayakers.

Over the last two weekends, I've had friends experience two completely
separate encounters where family groups of around 10 Orca have come in (much
faster than kayak speed) and spent time (around 10 minutes) with groups of
10 paddlers. One group was in sea kayaks (mostly yum-yum yellow) and had
encounters of less than 2m distance, but no touches. The other group of
paddlers was out on surf-skis (long, very skinny & fast racing sit-on-tops -
almost always white) and one of the best paddlers was gently bumped from
underneath by an Orca playfully (?) coming up under the ski. Oscar stayed
upright, but I believe his heart rate rose.

Being springtime and being sit-on-tops, the ski paddlers often wear farmer
johns - which as one of them said - make her feel uncomfortably like a seal
when in the water;-)

So far so good. We keep saying that no one's heard of Orca deciding kayakers
taste good.

We're also having trouble with a stroppy dolphin:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10611828

and

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10612601

SO the 'hood's definitely getting tougher.

Best Regards
Paul Hayward, Auckland, New Zealand
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