Day 2: Sailing in the Bay of Islands

We took off at 10am this morning aboard the Phantom with a wonderful couple named Robin and Rick.  The Phantom is a 50 foot yacht with enough room to hold 10 guests along with our hosts.  The weather was just ideal. 

Sun, great wind and DOLPHINS!!!  We were accompanied by bunchs of these amazing creatures.  They were swimming along side of our boat for quite a while this morning.  And when I say "along side," I mean they were right there.  I think I could have touched them if my arms were just a little bit longer.  These guys were so close, that one of them even spit on Brian in a swim by spitting.  It was just so cool getting such an up close look at them.  And no, we didn't swim with them.  The reason we got to spend so much time with the dolphins is because they were running away from the group that was trying to harass them in the water!

Around lunch time, we anchored just off one of the many, many little islands that are sprinkled all over the bay.  Rick offered to anyone who wanted to swim the opportunity to swim to shore.  Sounds like fun to me, and I thought it would be good exercise after being in sloth mode for 2 days.  So Brian jumps in ... "is it cold?"  He says it's not too bad.  So I take the plunge.  I don't know what Brian thinks is warm or hot, but that water was beyond a shadow of a doubt COLD.  Let me rephrase ... FREEZING COLD.  Brian is sitting here defending his judgement of the water temperature, describing it as "tepid."  Yep.  I'm not buying it.

So Robin served a gourmet lunch on board the phantom.  Let me tell you guys, these people have some good cheese.  Oh, and Rick collected fresh mussels that they served along with a fish they had smoked. 

Everything was SO fresh that I was wondering where they keep their cow to make their own cheese. 

After lunch was a wonderful, relaxing ride back to Russell.  Who knows what the evening holds for us.  We are off to hunt down another beach and find a look out point.