Bizarre New Zealand Water Life: Longfin Eels and Dusky Dolphins

In scrubbing through countless hours of video taken in New Zealand, the underwater footage made by my friend Karl on his GoPro amazed me! So much so that I couldn’t wait to process the video into a proper documentary, and wanted to share some of these awesome still frames now!

But these stills are from footage that almost didn’t happen. While I was totally burned out on the idea of producing another self-funded, insanely laborious nature documentary, Karl insisted that I couldn’t waste such a huge trip by not filming one. Karl is not a film-maker himself, but was so adamant about shooting a documentary in NZ that he went out and bought his own camera equipment to supplement what I already owned. That pretty much forced my hand.

However, though we were now equipped to make a documentary, I didn’t actually expect to find enough creatures to film. Despite NZ’s god-smacking natural beauty, most populations of land animals have been ravaged into decline by introduced species and human practices. Most of the native frogs are gone, the Māori hunted the giant land birds to extinction hundreds of years ago, and the animals still hanging on were then pushed into a corner when Europeans arrived with their weasels, pigs, cats, hedgehogs (yes, hedgehogs) goats, and deer, etc…

I didn’t bargain for the unexpected bounty of encounters with wildlife and natural phenomena that nature would bestow upon us in New Zealand, particularly underwater. It gave me enough footage to create a full length documentary with one exciting wildlife segment after another. The documentary will come in due time, but for now, here are some incredible underwater video stills captured from Karl’s simple GoPro. This batch is from the bizarre Longfin Eels of Lake Nelson National Park, and Dusky Dolphins off the coast of Kaikoura. I’m now fascinated by the idea of diving and true underwater photography.

These Longfin Eels lived beneath a pier at Nelson Lakes National park

Longfin Eels reach nearly 2 meters

I visited Nelson Lakes National Park just for landscape photos of the lakes-these eels were a total surprise. As I set up my tripod on a dock, I noticed motion beneath the water’s surface. When I saw dozens of 6 ft snake-like silhouettes slowly cruising around, I thought I was seeing things wrong. It took me a second to realize that I was surrounded by giant eels. I yelled for Karl to get the GoPro, quick!!! Well, as it turned out, they lived under the dock and weren’t going anywhere.

These Longfin Eels were very curious, bumping their snouts to the camera

There were around 100 eels that lived around this pier

Kaikoura was an ocean wonderland. Its beaches are lined with fat fur seals, and it’s possible to regularly observe Sperm Whales and Orca off the coast. I took a boat out to sea and was lucky enough to encounter an abnormally huge pod of Dusky Dolphins to snorkel with. This was my first time snorkeling in open seas. With tall swells coming at me, and my boat drifting far away in the background, it was a little intimidating at first if I’m honest. But the nervousness was rendered inert when the dolphins swam over to me to investigate. They didn’t slowly mosey over and hover in the water, they appeared from out of the deep blue, swam circles around me, then disappeared again.