Archive for October, 2008

pete made the call and it was right, we were going to get wet anyways.

Last night in Auckland, we had rain, thunder and lightning.  Yes the works!  I was lying on the couch watching Jaws 1, 2 and 3 and thinking “yuck, tomorrow is going to be crap”.  Then this morning, it pissed down.  We arrived at the shop and I didnt even get out of the car for 10 minutes as the pouring rain was only going to drip down my back.  But we were 7 and we were determined.

We grabbed the gear we needed and headed over the bridge and up the Northern Motorway on our way up to Jones Bay at Tarawhanui Regional Park.  As we got further out of Auckland, the weather started to clear and the sun came out.  We rocked through Matakana without too much long weekend traffic delay and then bumped and skidded our way down the gravel road to the bay.

keen as bro! Shane, Maria, Leigh, Pete, Alex and Craig just before the first dive

Alex and Craig had hotfooted it out of town and we all geared up, so not long after, we were all in the water.  There were already a couple of dive flags out in the water – a really good indication of which way to head to find the scallops.  Alex, Craig, Maria, Leigh and Shane all took off in one direction, meanwhile Pete and I bummed around looking at big gem nudibranchs and starfish.  We hit a scallop bed in about 11.4m of water and Pete got out his knife to measure the scallops.  Now he had taken a measurement off a tool at the shop before we left, so he said he knew which ones were the right size.  Just remember that little titbit for later.  None of the scallops we found were large enough so after 30 minutes, we turned around and headed back to the bay.  Popping up just inside the bay, we could hear Alex singing which meant they had a good dive.  We got back to the beach to find they had their quota and easily it seems.

Craig had sat on the bottom with the catch bag while Maria and Alex swam around throwing scallops at him to measure and then biff in the bag.

she wont use the changing rooms .... and wanders around in a towel when I have the camera out

would you drive with this man?

Alex and Craig were heading back to town to help Will out on the Rescue Diver course – the rest of us decided pretty quickly that we were definitely doing another dive.

Lying on the grass in ths sun, eating lollies and taking silly pictures, the weather pretty much held out for us.

Maria is having a damn fine day!

Muppet!!!

silly photos ... Mr Burns is back and Smithers would be excited!

and thats what Leigh thinks of that!

About an hour later, I was itching to get back in the water and man!  I wanted my scallops.  I wanted to find this great bed where the legal size ones were.  We geared up, ran in and headed off in the same direction.  Avoiding the beautiful long tail stingray (and trying to catch Leigh up who took off like an absolute rocket, I was towing the dive flag through a bit of swell).
At the same-ish depth, 11.7m, we found more scallops.  This time I had taken my real measuring tool and lo and behold, Pete the muppet had taken the paua measurement at the shop so our previous finds would have been totally legal!!  This time, Leigh sat on the bottom with the bag and counted in our quota.
Not 30 mins later, we were done and we headed back to the bay.

We stopped at the pub in Matakana for a little offgassing, a well earned beer and a bowl of fries.  The perfect way to end a great days diving – when we hadnt really expected to be able to get in the water.

Back at the shop, we rinsed our gear and then poured our bounty into the bath to give it a quick clean and divide it all up.  A 10% tip for Grant who had the job of working all weekend and Scuba Scallop Saturday can be called a complete success!!

the Scuba Saturday Scallop bounty!

Next trip, possibly crayfish or we might swap in a naturalist dive and do the crayfish on the following trip.

mmmm .. the butter and garlic is nearly ready ……..