A special dolphin and a special lady

Deutsche

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Moko, the solitary dolphin is hanging around Whakatane and Ohope recently and amazes many people every day. Chris Redhead, a local vet published a blog, where you can read up-to-date notices of Moko´s appearance, follow discussions and read about people’s experiences.
By following this blog I became aware of Kirsty, who often reported amazing experiences with Moko.

When I went eventually for a swim with Moko myself at the yacht club I noticed (not for the first time) a woman who seemed to interact in a `different´ way and who seemed to have a different relationship with Moko than those who were standing or swimming there in the water hoping for some attention from him.

She was not at all interested ...

An awesome account of dolphins by Mandy Hague

Duetsche

Mandy Hague has made an awesome record of her experience swimming with Moko the dolphin and also with wild dolphins further out to sea.
You can view my German translation here and here.

ps:   Mandy's other photos are also really good to have a look at!

So close, yet so far away!

Deutsche

On Sunday, I saw on Chris Redhead´s blog that Moko was at the wharf.   We live just 5 min away from there;  so  I packed my digital reflex camera, something to drink and went off so that I hopefully could see moko a bit closer this time. I parked my scooter further down at the information center – but, no moko at all.  But then the screaming of kids, `Moko, come here, come here´ showed me the way.  And indeed after  a few hundred metres I spotted him,  swimming very close to the bank.

He played as openly as  on many other occasions with a stolen boogieboard.  The bank is very shallow in that area, and so it happened that maybe 30 people, short and tall, were standing in the water, certainly also hoping that Moko would touch their legs.  And here I was with my expensive camera,  not daring to head too deep into the water, because again I had way too many accessories which must not get wet,  but I also didn’t want to leave them on the bank......

Dolphin in the wave

Klicken Sie hier für die deutsche Version

New Zealand's most famous dolphin, Moko, has recently been hanging around Whakatane.  On Friday he shocked the high school rowing team who were practicing in the harbour.   On Saturday he was 200 meters off the coast of Ohope, hanging around the kayakers.   This morning I went with Alice and the dogs to the west end of Ohope beach, hoping to catch a glimpse of the famous free-wheeler.
It was a glorious day, and there were a lot of people in the water surfing, boogie-boarding, kayaking, rafting, or just swimming.  It was so nice that we forgot about the dolphin until Alice spotted the perfect silhouette of a dolphin inside a curling wave.  A surfer was riding the top of the wave, so it was quite a sight!  After that, we saw Moko a few more times, hanging around swimmers and surfers.
Chris Redhead, a vet in Edgecumbe has started this blog to help keep track of where Moko is and what he is doing.
In the meantime, our dogs finally figured out how to play in the water and went completely crazy playing silly games like:  "push each other into the waves" and "run out past the waves so you don't dare to come and get me".  It was really special.
These photos are published here with permission from Chris on the understanding that the photographers retain the copyright on the photos: