A long long time ago Maui (the Maui dolphin) was just swimming along the Aotea harbour. It was really hard for Maui to swim because his arms were as long as a adults arm. Then out of nowhere a group of dolphins crowded round him and started teasing him. “Why are your fins so long?” says one.
“Yeah you should be called long fins” says another and they all start chanting “Long fins! Long fins!” Maui swam as fast as he could away from the crowd of dolphins and hid behind some big rocks.
A few minutes went by when Maui heard a noise coming from behind the seaweed “Who’s there,” he says.
“I am Tangaroa, God of the Sea and I am here to give you a gift.”
“What type of gift?”
“A gift of shorter fins.”
“Why are you doing this?” asks Maui
“I am doing this because you're no different to any other dolphin so why should you be treated like you have been. So tomorrow you too can have short fins, but only if you don't mention a thing to any other dolphin. Deal!” Tangaroa says.
“Deal,” says Maui.
The next morning Maui woke up to the most amazing thing in the world he had short fins! He felt so confident that he decided to go out for a swim to try them out but he was not ready to do this in front of anybody else. The day all went well so he went to sleep happy and looking forward to the next day. “Maybe tomorrow I will go out where people can see,” he thought to himself.
The next day Maui woke up but he found he had longfins again. He hunted everywhere to find Tangaroa. By lunchtime he had given up so he just went back to the rocks to hide and cried again. Then Tangaroa came rushing out, “I am so sorry Maui I gave you the wrong gift. I gave you the day lasting gift. I promise this time you will have the lifetime gift”
“Thanks Tangaroa,” says Maui.
By the next hour Maui already had short fins but this time they were a bit shorter than he wanted but still he felt confident to go out. So moui went for a swim along the harbour and saw a grey dolphin looking and laughing at him “Why is he laughing at me?”, says Maui. So he swam up to the dolphin and asked, “Why are you laughing at me I don't have long fins any more?”
“Because now your fins are really short and they look funny,” he replied.
This time Moui didn't go off and cry he stuck up for himself and said “Hey I'm not perfect but neither are you! So stop teasing me!”
“No I can do what I want,” answered the grey dolphin and as he swims off hits Maui on the nose.
Suddenly Tangaroa came out of nowhere. “Grey dolphins since you have been teasing Maui you shall never come close to this land. For you Maui you shall live in peace but with hector dolphin because you look a like and hector didn’t tease you. Then out of nowhere all the grey dolphins disappeared.
“Thank you,” say Maui.
And that is often why we see Maui and Hector's dolphins close to shore but not often with other grey dolphins and Maui lived a happy ever after
The end
