fishes/visjes

the best things in life are free.

while camping in mahia beach on the east coast, tom goes out for an afternoon walk and runs into a sign about a dolphin, nicknamed moko, who is contacting beachguests all the time since 2007 and how to approach him. while reading he sees a dolphin's dorsal fin every 30 seconds amongst swimmers on the beach. he hears himself say "oh, wow" everytime the fin appears: a wild dolphin amongst swimmers. how cool! he hurries back (15 minutes) to the campsite to get a hold of his family. he incidentally walks by the entrance to climb mahia's big rock rising out of the ocean by the name of mokotahi. ah, hence the name moko! laurian and mette are also really excited to go.

on the way back to the dolphin the voute-family comes by a group of 50 people gathering around something hanging off a hook almost 4 meters high. while getting closer, it turns out to be a huge marlin weighing 215 kilograms! the two fishers who caught them called it a once in a lifetime catch. they were father and son vanderzwet. father went on vacation from haarlem to new zealand when he was 17 and stayed to marry a new zealand girl. son was 45 now. and although they were dutch it had taken them 1.5 hours to bring the fish in and son actually got stabbed in his upper leg by the marlins beak or whatever you call it. check out the picture.

moko got almost forgotten but ten minutes later by that same beach as before, moko was showing up every now and then but quite far out now. laurian, tom and mette went swimming while allard was watching the valuables, but mette got cold and laurian and mette went on the beach. tom kept swimming but the closest he got was 10 meters. about an hour later, at five o'clock everyone decided to go home/camper van and the beach got quiet. suddenly laurian noticed that moko had turned up about 20 meters from the shore and she went in the water. there were about 5 other people but the dolphin didn't pay much attention. laurian remembered that she had heard that if she would tick stones against eachother, it would attract the dolphins attention. she grabbed two stones from the sand and started ticking in the water. next thing she knew was a dorsal fin coming at her and after that she saw even the whole dolphin getting close. she could only think of one thing: get rid of the attracting stones. and so she did. the dolphin went 15 cm by her.
she signed tom to come to her, told him about the stones tick trick and now it was tom's turn. knowing that moko would come right at him, he wasn't surprised nor scared when moko came straight at the stones with his snout and would even turn around to give it another look. this happened three times. moko didn't even mind touching while going by.
then thee guys came with a ball and moko played with it. tom got mette on his shoulders because she thought the water was cold and the dolphin was heeeel groot/very big. by that time the ball had drifted away and so did moko. the guys swam after the ball and threw it back to shallow water right where tom and mette were standing. and there moko came! see below a picture of moko, mette and tom playing with the ball.

three interesting additions:
1) allard is sleeping from 8 to 8.
2) moko had two illuster predecessors in new zealand. pelorus jack (www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelorus_Jack) and opo (www,en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opo_the_Dolphin).
3) moko is working had on becoming a living legend other than appearing on allardenmette.waarbenjij.nu:

Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Moko the dolphin saves the whales
New Zealand Herald:
Mr Smith received a call early Monday morning to say two whales had stranded on the south end of Mahia Beach.
"Generally speaking when pygmy sperm whales strand they end up dying, or they are refloated only to strand again later in the day and die.
"We worked for over an hour to try to get them back out to sea ... but they kept getting disorientated and stranding again.
"There is a large sandbar just off the shore so that could have been very confusing for them - they obviously couldn't find their way back past it to the sea."
After about four unsuccessful refloating attempts it was becoming highly likely the pair would have to be euthanased.
"The whales were getting tired and I was getting cold when Moko [a local dolphin] turned up," he said.
"It was amazing. We'd been working for about an hour-and-a-half when the dolphin came directly up to us.
"[Moko] had them moving parallel to the shore - for about 200 metres or so - within about a minute."
"The whales were sitting on the surface of the water quite distressed, they had arched their backs and were calling to one another, but as soon as the dolphin turned up they submerged into the water and followed her."
Moko led the whales about 200m along the beach towards the headland then led the pair all the way out to sea.
...
" She obviously gave them enough guidance to leave the area because we haven't seen them since."
Moko however was seen straight after - the playful dolphin swam straight back close to shore to play with local residents.

NRC Buitenland
Buitenland
Foto AP
Dolfijn redt walvissen
Gepubliceerd: 12 maart 2008 07:40 | Gewijzigd: 12 maart 2008 08:08
ANP
Wellington, 12 maart. Een dolfijn heeft twee gestrande walvissen veilig naar open water geleid nadat mensen het niet was gelukt de dieren uit de kust van Nieuw-Zeeland te houden.
Video - Onderwateropnames van Moko
De dieren leken volgens een lokale reddingswerker te communiceren waarna de dolfijn de walvissen langs zandbanken naar zee ,,escorteerde''.
,,Ik heb nog nooit van zoiets gehoord'', aldus Malcolm Smith die anderhalf uur vergeefs had geprobeerd de dieren te redden. ,,Het is verbazingwekkend.''
De bewuste dolfijn, Moko genaamd, staat in het gebied aan de oostkust van het Noordereiland bekend omdat het graag met mensen speelt. Zijn gedrag betekende ditmaal vermoedelijk het verschil tussen leven en dood voor de drie meter lange potvis en haar kalf. Kort nadat de walvissen uit het zicht waren verdwenen, pakte de dolfijn zijn favoriete bezigheid, spelen met zwemmers, weer op.
Bekijk een korte video van de geluiden van Moko, opgenomen in de wateren van Mahia.