Woman rescued from playful Moko
A woman was rescued freezing and exhausted from the sea off Mahia yesterday, worn out by the playful antics of resident dolphin Moko.
Christine McCafferty
A WOMAN was rescued freezing and exhausted from the sea at Mahia yesterday after Moko the dolphin prevented her return to shore.
Bystanders noticed the woman was at sea with Moko for some time late yesterday afternoon. She then began screaming for help.
“My uncle Ian was down at the beach getting some salt water and he heard her screaming. He came running into the restaurant and said to me ‘there’s a girl stuck on the buoy and Moko won’t let her come back in,” said Sunset Point Bar and Bistro manager Juanita Symes.
“At first I thought he was joking. Then another guy ran in from the beach and said we needed to get help.”
Ms Symes and her uncle Ian Blake, who was visiting from Wellington, acted quickly and borrowed a dinghy from a nearby house and immediately headed out to rescue the woman.
“When we got out there she had wrapped herself around the buoy and was absolutely freezing, she was freezing to death. She was completely exhausted. If we had left her any longer, she would have run out of energy. It took three of us to drag her into the dinghy because she had no energy.”
Moko was swimming around and under the buoy and diving alongside the woman whenever she tried to move, she said.
A paramedic was waiting on the beach to treat the woman when they returned to shore.
Ms Symes praised the quick response from her uncle for recognising the woman needed help.
“He was getting some salt water to cook some kinas and never thought for a second he would end up saving a woman from a dolphin.”
The rescued woman, who asked not to be named, said Moko was very special to the area and she did not want people to get the wrong impression that he was trying to cause her harm.
“I went out by myself quite late at 4.30pm, which probably wasn’t the wisest thing to do. I was wearing a wetsuit.
“I’ve spent quite a bit of time swimming with Moko and I’m a strong swimmer, so I wasn’t worried at first,” she said.
“We were playing around for a while but then when I wanted to go back in, he just wanted to keep playing. I became exhausted and started to panic.
The reality set in that I was out in the ocean with a wild animal and no people around, so I felt quite vulnerable.”
Moko has attracted worldwide attention since he took up residence at Mahia last year, and hundreds of people have descended on the small township to swim with him.
Gisborne woman Linda Coulston told The Gisborne Herald that when she and her son visited Moko over the holidays, he seemed “lonely.”
“I told them not to touch him but that was exactly what he wanted. He stayed with them for a good minute . . . he seemed to just want the contact.”