Rescued by lifeguard :)

On Saturday I went to Whangamata (3 hours from Auckland) to see three friends from Seattle, they were with the brother of one of them taking good care of a very nice house in front of a beautiful beach.

February 1st (Monday here) was Auckland’s anniversary so it was holidays and a long weekend was almost starting. On Sunday I had my first surfing experience, it was pretty good and not as difficult as I thought and after the 4th or 5th wave I was able to stand up on the board moving forward to the sea, what it was an amazing feeling!

Monday was different and it is where the story starts, if I’m writing this post is because I’m fine ☺. In the afternoon, Anna, Allysa and Jackie were suppose to go to watch a movie after surfing, so Kyle and me, decided instead of surfing and going for the movie, kayaking to an island and take the surfing boards later, when we return, and before the girls go to the cinema.

With Kyle (Jackie’s brother) we kayaked to an island. The island has the form of a dona because there is an internal lake inside of it, connected by a cave. The only way to get in is when the tide is low and there are not big waves. Before we were in front of the entrance of the cave we doubted to get in or not but we were almost there so after paddling quite fast we were on the cave and on the way to the small lake. We left the kayak in one of the internals beaches to walk around of it.

While we were walking, we found a second cave, much more smaller, which guided us to get out of the island so the real connections with the ocean were two, one quite big where we were able to kayak through and a second one smaller where we cradled and swam. The problem was that tide started coming up and waves growing, pushing and pulling all what was on them way and going back to collect the kayak was not a possible rational idea (maybe before neither), so at that moment we realized we both were stock in this second cave and not able to move forward or to return back, until the waves were smaller or tide came down.

In one moment, a big wave pushed us to the rock and it was why we were bleeding when the lifeguards rescued us but all the other time while we were waiting was not bad. Because we had not returned to meet the girls, they called the lifeguards and they went to look for us.

After circumnavigated the island and because they didn’t see us, they returned to the cost to ask the girls if they thought it was possible for us be inside of the island, they said maybe… so they returned and it was when we saw the BP lifeboat.

After the rescued, filled out some forms and checked that we were in ¨good¨ conditions we invited them to have some drinks. I thought to cook a big bbq for all of them but Andrew, the owner of the house who had returned on Sunday night, invited us to have dinner on the city.

We ended the night with 4 of the lifeguards, Andrew, his wife and daughter, Anna, Allysa, Jackie, Kyle and me playing beer pong and a very fun trivia. They all have a very special mention in personajes, I own them a lot ☺.

Couple very important things:

• The lifeguards said it was far one of the best rescues in the last seasons (the problem was that I was involved on it).
• If the article from the Whangamata´s newspaper came up I’m going to post it in this blog.
• The island was one of the most beautiful places that I ever been or seen and I always been curios by caves, however I know it doesn’t worth all what we did (sometimes don’t return before climbing to the pick of the mountain, because of weather, could cost you a limb in the best of the cases, and in this situation, with out mountain, it was not different, and I had to know it).

Finally THANKS to all, especially Matt, Andrew and Jackie.