The sailing-trip in Bay of Islands (The name is well chosen as the bay consists of 144 rocks, 20 of which islands) started at 8 am. An hour later we saw a group of playfull bottle-nose dolphins (which can grow up to 4 m big). Afterwards it got really bad: it was shaky and cloudy, I got sick for 3 hours non-stop. In the afternoon I recovered and our captain John (a whale-researcher) took us for a snorkeling in the beautiful green, but cold (max. 17 degrees, was my coldest snorkeling ever) New Zealand waters. The underwater world was worth it though: some very curious leather-jackets and parrot fishes, John collected some sea urchins (delicious), we had later for dinner.
Next day we got only clouds and some rain, but some fairy penguins were not bothered and swam around the boat. We made a nice walk on one of the islands and had some lovely views (no sun :(for more gorgeous colours of the sea) of the bay. The highlight of the second day was the fresh (and yummy) dinner, which John, Nico and some others collected on an underwater rock earlier that day: huge wild green lip mussels, the most common mussels species here, a real Kiwi icon, famous for its anti-inflammatory properties. We enjoyed them grilled on the barbecue with garlic and butter on the top deck of the boat.
The last day started with sun and wind, after a short walk on another island and some awesome view from the top of the hill (the sun does make a difference as one can see on the pics:-)
The view without sun(above) and with (below)...
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