Archive for December, 2008

after all the water based adventures of my actual birthday day, i decided i was going to carry it on.  so at 5.30am (eeek!!), on saturday morning, shane picked me up from home and we loaded all my dive gear into the truck and drove up to tutukaka.

i’d met nem and welly pete the previous day and i knew andy from way back, divemastered on sonias rescue course and abes openwater course – really there were only a couple of new faces.

(photo by michelle bishop) the 99 and 09 crews at the end of the diving day ... sonia, shane, abe, me, lindsay, sam, welly pete, alan, rob, andy

kate from dive tutukaka had really looked after us and she had given us bright arrow for the day.  we had sam as our skipper and shane as our crew and after storing a LOT of gear on board and grabbing water, coffee and supplies, we headed out.

dive one was at anns rock (or astrids wall).
before we got in there was a very large school of trevally herding the shrimps around the boat.  the trevally push the shrimps to the surface so when they are schooling and feeding, the trevally are half out of the water themselves.
i had not dived here before and its just to the left of northern arch.  michelle and i buddied up and we took lindsay and shane with us.  michelle had her camera, so we cruised around in front with the boys behind us.
we descended down the wall (which was basically at the stern of the boat – nice driving sam!) and just checked ourselves at 10 and then 18m.  we swam along the wall and then i saw the rock in the distance so i headed the crew out out to the rock.  there was a ginormous scorpion fish on the bottom at about 23/24m so i got the boys to stay at 18m and hung around while michelle got some great photos of it.
the nudibranchs are all still at it and while we swam side to side on the rock we also saw a lot of yellow eels and some big fat firebrick starfish.  i kept the group moving along and slowly ascending and before we knew it, we were safety stopping on top of the rock with rob and pete floating around with us.  it was a lovely dive!.

(photo by michelle bishop) me cruising around anns rock

once we were all back on the boat, sam gave us his schpiel on the poor knights and the marine reserve.  every skipper has their own cool piece of the history and as sam has been out with some of the department of conservation people when they have been landing on the islands (no one else is allowed to), it was very interesting to hear what is still up there.  i might blog the various interesting facts i have learnt from all the skippers, but ‘nother blog, ‘nother time ……..

we headed down the eastern side of tawhiti rahi to cleanerfish bay.  another site i hadnt dived yet – brilliant!
sonia had done a deep dive last dive with andy so she came along with michelle (who shall actually just be known as mum from now on), lindsay, shane and i.  cleanerfish bay had bright blue sections in the water when we arrived which meant there were plenty of blue mao mao around.  we swam over to the wall and dropped down to about 8-10m and the boys mucked around with their buoyancy and got themselves sorted.  then we headed over to the cave.  it was very hard to miss – right in the corner of the bay and just like sam said, it was a huge triangular opening.

(photo by michelle bishop) me in the entrance to the cave at cleaner fish bay

the dive site name suggests a lot of cleaner fish and oh boy yes this is true.  the demoiselles were herding the poor little buggers around and around in circles trying to get themselves tidied up.
i really enjoyed this dive – mum saw a sunfish!  i missed it and i am sure we were only on the other side of the rock at the time and then because i was feeling laz – and cheeky – i thought i’d hop a ride on rob and get him to swim me home.

(photo by pete humphris) me hopping a ride back to the boat on rob

of course he didnt go quite fast enough for me.  i’m thinking he was wondering what suddenly went wrong with his buoyancy and wasnt thinking about finning.  so after a quick tango, i pushed him down into the rocks and took off.
sonia and shane and i did our safety stop right underneath the boat.  for both dives this weekend, my navigation was absolutely perfect.  it must be all that zero visibility diving in lake pupuke thats just improved it ten/hundred/thousand fold!

petes got another shot on his camera that i am just dying to get a hold of.  i have to say its the best shot of me ever taken underwater – or could it be that its the best modelling that i have ever done underwater??
we shall have to see once i get my hands on them ….