Page 47 - 2008 NZ Subantarctic Islands

and among the rock stacks, skerries, and arches standing out from

the main landmass. We could sign up for one or two hour rides,
but the tours were so awe-inspiring and gorgeous that everyone

ended up wanting the complete adventure. Incredibly, the blue
sky continued to blaze above our heads and sunlight carefully

delineated every angle of rock, every waving tussock grass, every
serpentine piece of giant kelp flowing back and away with the
tide, every feather flick on the exposed ledges, every direction

change in the layering of the geologic strata, every shadow under
an rock arch or an outcrop.

On the Zodiac cruise, we saw many seabirds as well, some a-wing

over us and others standing unsteadily on rock slides plunging
towards the seawaters, others on the protuberances: endemic

yellow-eyed penguins with an estimated population of only 4000-
5000 pairs), Eastern Rockhopper penguins all jaunty with their
yellow crests and red eyes, lightly mantled sooty albatross, rare

Campbell Albatross and grey-headed ones too. Can ‘t remember
whether or not I have defined “endemic” before: it means

existing only in this place, so the yellow-eyes are only in New
Zealand, nowhere else in the world.

While we were on the Zodiacs we had a sea-based peak

experience—a pod of about 6-10 dolphins around the boats in
hunting behavior. It was really quite astonishing to watch the
dolphins perform what we always thought of as “circus” tricks in a

Sea World setting—leaping completely out of the water, turning
flips both backwards and forwards in mid-air, swimming at great

speeds in circles just under the water surface, rising out of the
water vertically practically standing on their tails! It was

awesome. The noise they made falling back into the water and
hitting the surface smartly with their tails must have aided them

in herding the school of fish they were hunting. This group
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