Manawanui Cruise--Day Three

Sunday, March 28, morning dawned with a beautiful sunrise.

After breakfast, John was determined to find some large sea life for us to see. He got out his binoculars and Moby the dog perked to attention. Sure enough, John spotted some spouts and we sailed towards them. Suddenly the group of dolphins were zipping through the water towards us as well. The sun was shimmering on the water and the breeze blowing. Moby barked in great excitement at the dolphins. The dolphins would ride our bow wake then swim off and come back for more. One of the dolphins intermittently smacked the surface with its tail. Probably a dozen dolphins swam and played by us for 15-20 minutes until more boats arrived (alerted by John) and we moved on.

We continued sailing to an area of basalt lava flows known as The Black Rocks. They are long, large, black (duh!) formations that rise dramatically out of the bay.

At this point, John invited us to once again don wetsuits and dive for our lunch--green lipped mussels. I’m sad to say that Mark and I declined. I have never learned to dive with a snorkel plus, although sunny, it was pretty cold. Mark, on the other hand, is not a very confident swimmer and was not excited about trying to swim up against the rocks where the mussels were. I stayed on the boat; Mark rode along in the dingy. The others were instructed to compare the mussels to their hand size (nothing smaller) then grab tightly and twist.

 They came back shortly with a bag full of knarly looking big mussels. Mark immediately volunteered to help Jessie crack them open.

Seconds later, they were on the BBQ cooking with a little lemon butter and garlic. And just minutes later, we were invited to feast. Talk about fresh seafood! When done we just tossed the shells over the side!

We are so very glad that we did this trip. It was all we had hoped for and more.