Scuba Diving Training, Trips, News and Blog
Trip Report : Can I stretch it?
do you think i can make this post Birthday Part Four?? seeing that my birthdays do seem to stretch out to about two weeks …..
we’d been planning it for months – pretty much since i met my dive buddy pete on his open water course and he decided he was going to do his advanced. it was the global dive december liveaboard (well #1) liveaboard on pacific hideaway out at the poor knights islands.
we left auckland pretty quickly on friday. firstly to beat the shitty weekend traffic and secondly because sitting in the sun at tutukaka marina having a drink with rachel (divediva from scubadive.net.nz) was a much better idea than working. we were discussing the work rachel has been doing on the Sea Our Future course for any one who is visiting a marine reserve in new zealand. i havent completed the course myself yet but plan to as soon as possible and to also get involved in the monitoring of the marine reserves that we are very lucky to have in new zealand.
we had a reasonably early night on friday night. we’re all so excited to be leaving the next morning that after a couple of glasses of wine, i’m ready to snuggle down into my coffin (the berth under the kitchen is MINE!).
saturday morning was a bright clear warm day. mark and denise arrived about 8.30 to make sure the boat was ready and to do the boat briefing and then we were off. i was so excited for pete being a poor knights virgin but i dont think he enjoyed the ride out there too much even though there was next to no swell compared to the last few trips. still, we cant all have cast iron tummies!
we did seven dives over the whole weekend so i’ll add the dives in as they appear in my dive log – and as the choice for passing my divemasters was a new ikelite housing for my nikon, then the underwater shots will have to wait.
cleaner fish bay
dive site : cleaner fish bay
maximum depth : 19.4m
bottom time : 50 mins
dive log summary :
peak performance buoyancy dive for the advanced course. we had two students also joining us for their dry suit orientation and cleaner fish bay is the perfect spot for it. descending down the wall to the left side of the cave, the large boulders provide perfect opportunities to practice stopping, hovering and ascents and descents using adjusted lung volumes. this time, there wasnt a large ray in the back of the cave (which was lucky as six divers across the front of the cave wouldnt have made it very happy), but there was a beautiful yellow moray eel at the entrance.
blue mao mao arch
dive site : blue mao mao arch
maximum depth : 14.5m
bottom time : 73 mins
dive log summary :
a great site for our pleasure dive. pete and i got the chance to dive together just for fun and were accompanied by sonia, christian and antonio. perhaps we should have warned them that we are a little crazy – not just above water but below as well. even when we were hanging on the line we were (well i was) getting pete back for his smart mouth by punching him in the babymaker! we swam over to the left side of the arch and dropped down to about 8m. a large marblefish greeted us by actually swimming towards us and then showing off with a glorious dive down.
we then headed into the arch. bue mao mao never fails – even when its not state fishway #1, its beautiful. we were rewarded with snapper at the swim through, baby bigeye just through the swim through, blue mao mao and bluefish crowding in the arch, a huge grey moray eel at the bottom of the arch on the way out the other side and when i decided to turn us around and bring us back through the arch, the toad stool grouper had taken up the space previously made home by the moray eel.
we swam through the arch four times in total and then made our way out and around the side of the arch. christian and antonio were getting low on air so i swam them over to the anchor line (yay to my navigation!) and sonia went up with them.
pete and i took off back to the arch and we were met with a wall of fish just after we came up from the swim through. A.M.A.Z.I.N.G.!.!.!
we cruised back to the anchor line and watched a beautiful short tail sting ray swimming below us. prior to finishing our safety stop, we swam over to the stern of the boat and ascended at the steps.
cruising around the poor knights - the magnificent southern arch
the gardens
dive site : the gardens
maximum depth : 14.1m
bottom time : 48 mins
dive log summary :
we had done underwater navigation for the previous advanced course at the gardens and i think its a lovely site. this time, we were a little further to the left, and instead of a nice sandy patch, we had an even bigger patch covered in sea lettuce to work in. anna dropped down and laid out the line and was greeted with sandaggers wrasse who were very curious to see what was going on.
we completed the kick cycles and the swim timings and the reciprocals and the squares and headed off for the natural navigation tour. this is where anna “gets lost”. she makes the face and the signals so well.
i saw a mado! the mado sometimes act as cleaner fish and are beautiful with their stripes. we were also in the company of snapper and green wrasse. anyways … pete took off with a hiss and a roar with antonio following closely along behind so anna went with them and i hung back with nick. nick did really well! he followed the exact path whereas the others veered off to the left a bit and then nearly overshot the mark.
post natural navigation, we had enough time and air for a bit of a swim so we headed up into the back of the gardens near the wall and into a little cave that was full of demoseilles. there was a large kingfish hiding in the rocks when we came out and a really really really huge scorpionfish just sitting there thinking we didnt see him.
surface intervals are fun! andrew gets his big .... camera out
dive site : middle arch
maximum depth : 15.3
bottom time : 29 mins
dive log summary :
post mass lamb shank, peas and mashed potatoes with gravy consumption, i sneaked a quick jump into a drysuit for the night dive. even though i was being really tough and diving in my wetsuit during the day, as soon as i had the option of not diving in a wetsuit – i took it!
we had prepped all our gear when it was still light so as the sun went down, i got more excited. it was night diving time!!
when we got over to the wall, i realised that i hadnt adjusted my weight for the dry suit. bugger it. if nem can get to 35m without a weight belt, i can bloody well get to the bottom of middle arch. i had one go and on the second try, put the slingshots into motion and headed on down.
SHARK!! SHARK!! SHARK!! a bronze whaler appeared in the side of the torch beams and as anna (and the rest of us) shone them right in his eyes, he proceeded down the beam of annas torch. he stayed for what seemed like minutes but was probably only a few seconds before following annas torch off to the right and then over our heads.
after that little episode, i was on a high! as anna took the guys off individually on their compass swims, i stayed at the wall with the other two. the walls were positively heaving! the little crabs that look like moving rocks, the demoseilles up in their little resting places, the dirty dirty dirty nudibranchs. after their swims, we headed into the arch and around the walls.
early morning middle arch
dive site : middle arch
maximum depth : 26.8
bottom time : 50 mins
dive log summary :
the sunday morning dive is my absolute favourite, but i didnt think we were ever going to get in the water! i need to practice my cat herding skills a bit more and get the students geared up and doing their buddy checks faster. but we managed it in the end and off we headed to the left side of middle arch.
we dropped down slowly, checking ourselves at 10, 18 and then 26m. anna found a nice patch and settled the guys into it to do the gauge comparisons and timed tests to demonstrate that everyone feels narcosis at depth. as we lifted off and started to come up, a gorgeous short tail sting ray swam past us and then came around for another show. we looked in the rocks and the cracks and crevices and found nudibranchs and moray eels and crayfish. we came up to the entrance to bernies cave and as everyone had more than enough air left, anna took pete and antonio up into the air bubble while nick and i explored the bottom of the cave. there were a few sleepers in there. when anna and the guys were on their way down, nick and i headed up into the air bubble. its extremely cool to be able to take your reg out at 8m and have a conversation and then to descend back down into the cave. anna found a big fat tamja verconis nudibranch on the rock at the front of the cave.
we headed out and were accompanied by a very large long tailed stingray who came into the arch with us. as we went up the slope and almost out the other side of the arch, an even bigger stingray gave us a marvellous demonstration of his ballet like turning abilities.
the sugarloaf
dive site : the sugarloaf
maximum depth : 25.6
bottom time : 42 mins
dive log summary :
mark the skipper thought that today might be the day that we would be able to dive the pinnacles but when we got out there, it just wasnt quite right so we headed over to the sugarloaf. he dropped us off and we went on another pleasure dive. i took pete and antonio on a wall dive and as we needed to maintain a deep profile for our next dive, we slowly descended down to about 25-26m on the sunny side. i think i saw the most pink mao mao i have ever seen on this dive and a wonderous site were the schooling leatherjackets.
we cruised side to side along the wall coming up a few metres at the end of each cycle. there was quite a bit of surge but you can sit upright along the wall and it will swing you one way and then back the other. its a bit of an art form really and it takes a bit of practice. near the end of the dive, antonio got caught right up against the wall and whilst he was trying to use the kelp to hold him in place, the lift was too great. i was trying to get his attention to get him to swim out to me, as i was hanging out from the surge doing my safety stop but in the end, after he lost his reg, i went in and got him and got him to hold onto my d-ring whilst i pulled him out and then we were all able to complete our 5m for 3mins.
dive site : hmnzs waikato
maximum depth : 27m
bottom time : 29 mins
dive log summary :
the last couple of trips i have been on, the seas have been a bit rough to get on to the wreck which sits just outside of tutukaka marina. this trip, however, was completely different! with nice flat seas and prfect sunshine, today was definitely the day. it was also the last dive of the advanced course so it worked out great for the guys.
we descended nice and slowly down the line onto the mooring block by the helicopter hangar. the visibility on the wreck wasnt too bad! once we got on to the wreck and left the line, we gave the boys time to adjust their buoyancy and then went on a tour of the outside of the wreck. it has listed a lot to the port side since i was there last. the railings are in about 27m now. a banging door is completely encrusted with anemones and there are a lot more fish around too. we stopped at the bridge and had a long look in and then went around and over the other side railings. we swam around the topside and over the funnels and even though it was a short tour, it was lovely to be back on the waikato once more. am looking forward to a full tank of nitrox (or some doubles) and a longer bottom time next trip. plus i am going to finish my wreck speciality in january so i can do a longer penetration than previous visits.
sunfish!! the second or third seen in just a couple of weeks
this would have to be one of the best weekend liveaboards at the poor knights in a long long time. so good in fact is the diving (and the 18 degree water temperature helps too), that i think i just might go again in a couple of weeks.
