Penguins Like Their Water Cold

I should have clued in the minute I saw these little guys hop, hop, hopping from the surf line up to their nests in the rocks (or when I saw those two sleeping on the beach getting a tan -- that's another story). No doubt about it, the ocean off the south end of NZ is cold.


Instead of drawing the logical conclusions others would, I could only pull up memories of old Batman TV episodes; the cackle of The Penguin lyrical in my head "Wah, wah, wah. I've got you now, Batman! Watch out for my umbrella - is spouts gas (frightening!). Now I'll dip you into this deep freeze water - wah, wah, wah..."


Yea, this isn't Bondi Beach. It is cold - at least without a wetsuit, and I didn't bring one. It just wasn't at my fingertips living in Singapore. Thankfully, there are beautiful breaks (not as nice as some we had in the southeast of Australia - Avoca beach almost brought a tear to my eye) as well as excellent beach vistas here.






After one particularly brisk body surfing session with A she came out of the surf covered in little flecks of green and brown seaweed; a top-notch mermaid impersonation. Sadly, there was no pocket for my camera in my swimming "togs" so I can't provide you with visuals.




The warmest water we've had in NZ was in Doubtful Sound(!). Those are the dark, icy looking waves in the last photo. Jumping off the cruise ship from the 2nd deck into the dark depths ellicited lots of satisfying "whoooa" comments from the elder passengers on board; highly recommended.




The fjord water was the blackest I have ever seen (last photo is of the fjord - expect Nessie to pop her head out any minute). The top layer is brackish and creates some sort of layer above the salt water underneath that sucks all the light out of everything. Supposedly it gets brighter after you get below where the brackish stops - but I couldn't dive that far down. Man, it was spooky... (cue Penguin laughter).