Its the Reef!

i have just had the most glorious weekend out at the Poor Knights Islands.
Arriving in tutukaka much later than we had originally planned (and $200 poorer thanks to Andrews awesome ‘Australasian Salesman of the Year’ tactics and a pair of Fourth Element bottoms), Leigh and I got on board the pacific hideaway and turned on the lights for the two couples sitting in the dark.  who sits in the dark and doesnt look for the lightswitch??  weirdos ….

anyway, saturday morning dawned bright and clear and we took a walk down to the corner store for water and sugary snacks, and got ready for the land based exercises.  this weekend, we had two advanced open water students and part of this is navigation techniques.  we did our compass reading and turning techniques with the students, Adam and Jakob, and we were off!

tutukaka marina

for a really nice change, the 1.5 hour boat ride out to the Poor Knights Islands (a marine reserve established in 1981) was calm and the sea was almost like glass.  mark the skipper told us that a couple of weeks before hand, a whale had surfaced right in front of the bow of the boat but had gotten a hell of a fright and descended very quickly never to be seen again.
we arrived at the islands and headed over to Blue Mao Mao Arch – one of my very favourite dive spots.  we geared up and got in the water and as i was wearing a new DUI drysuit, i did my weight check.  sat at the surface right, sunk approximately 1 metre and thought i was good to go.  we swam over to the wall near the arch and gave the okay to descend.  then i got the most horrendous cramp in the ball of my foot.  the DUI suit has rock boots but due to the size of my ass, i need a suit that has size 11 boots.  size 11!!!!  my mares volo fins are smalls!  $how the bloody hell can i fit size 11 boots into small fins.  i should have pulled on my wet boots over the water proof bottoms of the drysuit.  i gave up at this stage.
i snorkelled above the group until i caught the instructors attention to let her know i was heading back to the boat.  with two things not quite right before the dive and the group already heading off, time to abort.

the islands and arches of the Poor Knights Islands

from Blue Mao Mao Arch, we motored through the gorgeous arches of Aorangi Island, admiring the natural beauty of the eroded remains of a volcano which is 4 million years old.

we were heading towards the Gardens.  this was a perfect place for the next dive of the Advanced Open Water – Underwater Navigation.  i geared up and jumped in and completed the swim to the wall.  there was myself, anna, adam and jakob.  we gave the okay to descend and down we went.  i got to 1.5m and took my first shallow breath and **pop** i was at the surface again.  okay .. grr .. gave it another go and same thing.  i was getting really annoyed at this stage after having to abort the previous dive due to cramp so i signaled to the boat i was on my way back and grabbed some more weight.  and more weight.  and more weight.  not only did that bloody drysuit give me cramp, but i had to carry 8 extra kilos of weight!  i snorkelled half way back to the wall and kept an eye out for my groups bubbles.  i knew that they would only be at about 10-12 metres so they were easy to see as the visbility at the gardens was amazing.  i saw them and began my descent.  i got down to them just as they were about to begin the swim out – where anna would make a face like where are we – and they would navigate us back.  they were learning about natural navigation techniques.

navigation is a lot of fun underwater and whilst i do what my compass tells me, i like to take a bearing and then head off in that direction and check out the scenery.  the cool thing about doing this underwater is you have more than one way of determing where you are and where you have been.
for goodness sake dont choose a fish as they never stay where you want them – especially when trying to photograph them – watching the light, the direction of the sun, interpreting the way in which the water is travelling, what the bottom composition is like (eg sand ripples are always parallel to the shore), where the rocks/boulders are and then there is the noise.  sound travels 5 times faster.  and although everything seems like its overhead, you can hear the sounds that the sea life is making.  crunching, crackling and popping – listen to the reef, it is talking to you!
the standing joke of this weekend became “its the reef!”.

from the gardens, we headed to rikoriko cave to check it out and for mark and pete to tell their stories.  exaggerated stories and for mark to blow on his conch to demonstrate the acoustics in the cave – which is the largest natural sea cave in the world.  we checked out the conditions as we were planning on staying in the cave overnight and it is also a good safe place to do a night dive as part of the course.  from rikoriko cave we headed over to middle arch.  next to middle arch is bernies cave in which there is a frog for the girlies to kiss, a teddy bear money box and a large air bubble which you can ascend into, remove your regulator and talk to each other in squeaky voices whilst your gauge registers 8m below the sea.  this was to be my first internship dive – it was to include the dive briefing and guiding certified divers.
the briefing went pretty well, i know the site well so the map was accurate and i remembered my previous dives and thought we could make the dive i planned easily.  we geared up and jumped in and made our way over to the wall which conveniently has a streak of limestone which points down to the cave.  we descended and went into the cave.  we found the frog and the teddy bear even though it was quite dark at the back of the cave.  there were a bunch of other divers in the air bubble – all kicking like mad (why didnt they just inflate their bcds?).  we left the cave and continued into the arch where there was no current but a mad mad mad amount of yellow eels and nudibranchs, both clown and tamja verconis.
we crossed the arch and made our way over to the other wall which was also covered in nudis.  unfortunately, as i lost my casio camera somewhere in buenos aires and i haent replaced it – i dont have any underwater photographs of this trip.
at our safety stop, i had the holdfast kelp parted and was holding on whilst looking at dwarf scorpionfish and nudis and trying to deal with my floaty ankles.  bjorn – one of my divers – asked me if i was okay and i signalled i was and after 3 mins we ascended and made a short swim back to the boat.  i marked a few things on my evaluation form but #1 – my divers made it back to the boat!

night falls inside rikoriko cave

that night, phew, i was knackered!  i managed 1.25 beers and sloped off to bed.  being rocked to sleep with the slight noise of the sea is dreamy.  we had a quick breakfast in the morning and headed up to northern arch for the deep dive.

anna, adam, jakob and lee on his twin tanks headed over to the wall and descended down stopping at 16m and 22m to check ourselves and our equalisation before descending further down to 26m.  i got completely narced!  getting narced is diver talk for nitrogen narcosis.  i felt like i was a bit drunk and not in control of myself and even though i have been deeper than 26m, it hit me at a different depth this time.  i realised it was happening when i caught myself spinning around in a circle and not looking at the group.  i checked my gauge, finned up to 24m and felt better and then just breathed through the last of the anxiety.  even though i was supposed to be down with the group as a divemaster, i signalled to anna and she came back with okay?  okay i signalled.

after they finished their tests, we headed off into northern arch and just missed a bronze whaler shark!  it was a short dive because of the depth and the arch was a little cloudy so the visibility was good but not great.  we got back on board the boat and it was time for baked beans and bacon for breakfast.  YUM!

we headed back down to rikoriko cave but because i had a slight headache, i sat on board in the sun and updated my logs instead of completing the dive.

the last dive of the day was on the HMNZS Waikato. i had been looking forward to the wreck dive all weekend – even bringing nitrox for the dive but after my experience this weekend something wasnt right.  and it wasnt just the 3 metre swells and the thought of 3-4m of visibility.

anna "sensei" - instructor, mentor, friend.

i know whats up.  i am not 100% dive fit.  i need to work on my fitness more before completing a challenging dive.  in rough seas, getting back on the boat with my haematomia and patella tendonitis is too slow and could be dangerous so i thought about it and then discussed a plan with anna. instead of me feeling bad about not completing as many of the dives as i would have liked, she gave me a thumbs up and said that part of diving is recognising your limits and dealing with them – or also in my case – sorting out a plan to minimise them.  we are doing a rescue course at the moment and an open water course starts next week so combine good food, gym and shallow training dives and i’ll be back to a good level of dive fitness in no time.

baby seals on the rocks at the Poor Knights

coming home last night, just heading into whangarei, adam and lee came roaring up behind us (in their uber-cool peugot 407 hdi station wagon *cringe*) and flashed their lights and moved out to our left hand side.  leigh pulls over to the left a little – when they pull past us and lee leans out the window screaming “its the reef!”

i nearly peed my pants laughing.

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