Sailing Cruise in Akaroa: Sail Yourself! - Day 220© NZPocketGuide.com
Sailing Cruise in Akaroa: Sail Yourself! - Day 220

Sailing Cruise in Akaroa: Sail Yourself! – Day 220

© NZPocketGuide.com

Day 220 on the Road

Sail Yourself and See Dolphins in Akaroa!

Today we’re joining Akaroa Sailing Cruises for a trip on the Akaroa Harbour. If you like this video and want to see more 365 Days: 365 Activities then head on over to our awesome YouTube Channel!

Update: Akaroa Sailing Cruise is not currently operating.

Sail away sail away today we are going sailing.

Today is a great day. So we’ve left our Jucy car in the parking lot to board our lovely A-Class Sailing Boat.

It’s a stunning day to get out onto the Akaroa Harbour so we’re making our way to the Akaroa Wharf and meeting Ray who is gonna be our guide for this sailing tour.

As we pull out of the Akaroa Wharf it is literally all hands on deck because this sailing tour means that we are actually getting behind the helm and we’re gonna be helping Ray sail this vessel. We’re getting involved in the tacking, gybing, setting sail, trimming sail, grinding, tailing, and sail drop and now ray is giving us loads of commentary about this huge harbour that we’re sailing around today.

Ray is an amazing tour guide. He knows everything about the Akaroa Harbour history both the geological history the Akaroa Harbour used to be a massive volcano back in the days, and also the human history which is when people arrived in on the Akaroa Harbour especially the French guys and we arrived on boats exactly like this one. Actually not exactly like this one it was some sailing boats but they were much bigger because they used to use those boats to cross the entire world and the journey used to take between three to six months depending on the weather. It’s quite impressive.

Ray is also an amazing teacher he’s taking the time to teach us everything we need to know about sailing so we get to feel a little more confident at the helm of the boat. It’s really cool to get a tour that is that interactive. he’s really taking the time to answer all our questions, giving us heaps of tips and giving us both a chance to actually be at the helm of the boat we are alternative between Laura and i so we can have fun all together.

the feeling of quietly gliding across the water is absolutely unique most of the time when we do some boat tours we are on engine boats so there is a lot of vibration there is a lot of noise and you can tell you’re on some means of transportation but right now we’re just using the power of nature and there’s almost no noise just the little bit of the wind hitting the sail. It’s really coll and we get to hear every single bird around us as well it’s so nice.

We also get the time to just sit back and relax on this sailing cruise, we’re visiting around 10 to 11 different points of interest around the Akaroa Harbour including the Cathedral caves, Elephant rock and penguin cave.

There are a lot of rugged coastal cliffs and that’s because the Akaroa Harbour is actually a crater of an ancient volcano.

On top of that we also learn why the water here is so vibrantly blue, a lot of the glacial water that’s brought down from the Southern Alps actually comes and terminates in this area around Akaroa bringing down glacial silt and suspending it in the water giving it this super turquoise colour.

Aside from the scenery the Akaroa Harbour is also all about wildlife.

What, dolphins!

Ray makes a point telling us that he doesn’t chase the wildlife the wildlife just comes to find his boat. Because his boat has a very different pressure wave due to the fact that it’s a sailing boat they love to play with it. So all those little Hector dolphins are coming to have a fun time on the bow of the boat and it’s really fun.

We are super close to the dolphins like literally at arms length of them and they are not afraid of us whatsoever they’re just having a blast on the water giving us a super show.

And as soon as the dolphins are done playing in the pressure waves they are swimming away and doing their own little thing I’m pretty sure it’s gonna involve a lot of fish eating and wave playing.

Around the end of the tour the wind is picking up and we start getting a little bit more speed and because Ray has noticed that we are feeling a little more confident he is giving us a little bit more freedom to make our own path across the Akaroa Harbour and make our way back toward the anchoring point of the boat.

The tour basically turns into a friendly fun time on the water it’s not teaching anymore it’s nothing to do about the wildlife it’s just kind of sailing around and seeing how the boat is behaving toward the different wind current which are around the harbour. It’s a lot of fun time and we are having a blast.

Another really cool thing about sailing is that it’s an environmentally friendly way to get around the Akaroa Harbour we actually use the sails for almost the entire trip and just using the power of nature to get us around it’s a really good feel good factor for this tour.

By the end of the trip, Robin is hooked on sailing and just like a sailor trying to resist a mermaid he wants to rope himself to the mast and I can’t get him to leave.

I want to stay in the boat. I had too much fun.

Come on we’re leaving. No.

Damn I really didn’t want to leave I really love the Akaroa Harbour but I’m in luck because tomorrow we are going back onto the water as we’re gonna go swimming with the Hector dolphins.

Tomorrow we are going to be swimming with dolphins. We saw the Hector Dolphins today the beautiful specimens that they are. Well tomorrow we’re gonna be joining them in their natural environment and doing some swimming with dolphins so join us then. Yeah!

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