Bay of Islands Sailing?

[Rubyshoes]

OH and I are planning on spending a few days in the Bay of Islands over the long Easter weekend. We're thinking of taking one of the sailing tours out of Paihia and are having difficulty choosing which one.

We're really interested in either the Swimming with Dolphins or the Tall Ship sailing. Has anyone done either of these tours? Both are with Fullers Great Escapes. Anyone have recommendations of other tours that we might be interested in?

[1979vanessa]

I did the dolphin trip with Fullers, and it was AMAZING!! so good in fact that I'm thinking of doing it again when I'm up at easter!

[three to go]

We have done both. The dolphin one was with Fullers & was amazing as Vanessa said. The tall ships trip we did was the full day one on the R. Tucker Thompson (I think that may have been through Fullers too but I am not 100% sure) and it was quite honestly wonderful. They were both fabulous trips but if I had to choose between the two, the R Tucker Thompson is definitely the one I would do again.

[sophiedb]

I am massively biased toward the RTT as we got married on board!

We booked the whole thing out for a day and went sailing about the brine with all our friends and family, settled in a little cove for lunch and ceremony, then more sailing. Complete with manly chest-beating style competitions between families over who could climb higher/faster up the rigging

I'd love to do the swimming with dolphins tour too, but RTT was lovely and relaxing

[LisaandPaul]

These trips sound great!. Couldn't see any details on fullers website though :-(

[sophiedb]

The RTT website is here: http://www.tucker.co.nz/

[norma]

We've done a few trips with Dolphin Discoveries:

http://www.explorenz.co.nz/Dolphin-D...ies/index.html

They offer a lifetime guarantee that if you don't see dolphins you can do the trip again for free any time in the future.

[Silverwing86]

Following on from Norma's post, why not do a combination of both ?

I've just returned from a five day trip to Paihia (with a friend from abroad) and went on the 'Swim with the Dolphins cruise' with Explore NZ for the third time. It's always different, as they go looking for the dolphins wherever they may be at the time, and it never bores !

Some pics I took during our latest trip (my skill at managing to actually get a dolphin/dolphins in the pictures has improved with every trip !):

(You can click them for a larger image)







Note the little baby in front, sooooo cute !

This is also what I appreciate immensely about these trips; the dolphins' wellbeing is their number one priority and the rules are strictly adhered to, so if there are babies in the pod, no swimming is allowed.

(The main reason for this is that the babies need to feed every three minutes to survive and when humans are swimming around them they may be distracted so that they don't feed enough, which may put them at risk.)

Again, a truly great experience that never bores, enjoy !

Cheers,
Silver

[JandM]

LOVELY pictures.

[sophiedb]

Wow