Trip Report : Winter Wonderland at White Island

A small convoy of us headed down to Tauranga from Auckland on a chilly winter Thursday evening.
Jono, Veronika, Francois and I stopped for massive steaks (at the Horny Bull – Francois’ choice) and talked about what an excellent weekend we were going to have.

Whilst waiting for the rest of our group to arrive, we stood around on the dock in the freezing cold sipping kawakawa Mr. Vodka and Veronika’s own mulled vodka concoction til we could feel our toes and our fingers again.
Francois then decided that red wine was in order – but all of this is a story for another time (including the small cloud of vomit that we needed to ascend through the following day).
Tony and Ben finally arrived – with Brent in the morning – and it was time for bed to be rocked to sleep in my cosy little berth.
And it was cosy.

Ma Cherie is a lovely boat.
She is made of wood and although we crammed 7 divers and 2 crew on for the weekend (luckily we are all friends here), if you are my height, then there is plenty of room to move around.

The next morning I woke to find John Baker – our skipper – had arrived and was loading all our food for the weekend.
We quickly hit the supermarket for more wine (yes MORE .. what was I thinking) and then unloaded the truck.
We headed out of Whakatane Marina just after 8am on Friday morning while everyone else would have been in traffic on their way to work.  Ha ha!

It takes around 3 hours to get out to White Island.  It is 50km offshore.
My Telecom XT mobile lost coverage about 10 minutes before we arrived at our first dive site … bugger! #NOT!

This weekend I tried out the Scubapro Fusion Dry Suit (thereafter nicknamed ‘the Condom’.  I have to say – I loved it, bar the small issue I had as below in one of the dive logs.

Dive One – The Fumeroles (Shark Bay)

Grey Moray Eel hanging out in the Kelp

The Fumeroles are so named for the tiny holes in the sand where you can stick your fingers and warm them up.
You can also feel the warmth of the volcano by lying on the sand.  But diving is not all about lying down so Veronkia and Jono and I spent the dive exploring.  There are heaps of boulders and crevices and a swim-through.

This is a lovely site that I will be doing again – perhaps minus completing a safety stop watching the fish chow down on what Francois could not keep in his tummy.  Ewww.

Dive Data
||  Depth: 25.44m |  Time:  58 mins |  SAC Rate: 15.25L/Min | Temp: 16 degrees |

Dive Two – Club Rocks

This was a nightmare – a whole seven minutes of feeling water leak into my suit!
Anyway, there is not too much more to say about this dive – other than it was a total user error. Bum as it was going to be a good one – I could tell that as soon as I descended near the rock wall.

We had been watching the seals for quite a while as the tanks were filling.  Francois and Brent headed off – again Francois was determined to get seals swimming in the water on video.

Dive Data
||  Depth: 11.24m |  Time:  7 mins |  SAC Rate: 23L/Min | Temp: 14 degrees |

Friday night and we huddled in to a bay on the eastern side of the island.
John and our deckie Dylan cracked out the BBQ and we had a few quiet drinks.
Now is probably a great time to say that both John and Dylan had made all of us feel extremely welcome on the boat and were just awesome at taking care of us.  Its amazing how fast the time can pass when you are all sitting around on a boat – even with no television.  Music, stories, laughs – this is part of what makes a liveaboard so much fun.

Dive Three – Twin Peaks

We decided to head out to Volkner Rocks – I was so excited.  Volkner Rocks is a marine reserve and I had heard great things.
This dive was a great way to start the morning!  The first thing I noticed was the size of the fish!

We dropped down under the boat and headed off in search of a pinnacle.  I am still not 100% sure that we found it – but we found a big rock nearly reaching the surface and that was good enough for me.

The Pink Maomao were the fish that I noticed had the greatest difference in size.  And I also noticed that the grey moray eels were seen more wrapped around the kelp than they were hiding in rocks and cracks.

Dive Data
||  Depth: 19.78m |  Time:  52 mins |  SAC Rate: 14.52L/Min | Temp: 15 degrees |

Dive Four – Diadema Rock

WOAH WOAH WOAH YEA YEA YEA!  I did not want to come up from this dive!

A negatively buoyant descent off the back of the boat due to a bit of swell that was rocking us around but as soon as I put my head under the water I could see the rock.  And the water was blue.  Oh so blue.

We headed down to our maximum depth.  On this dive, Tony was trying out my DUI Dry Suit so Tony and I, Jono and Veronika hung together.  There was a bit of a current heading around the rock to the eastern side however swimming in to it for the first half of our dive meant we were swept slowly back to our ascent point for the second half.

And I know why it is called Diadema Rock!!  You could not help but notice that the rock was covered in them – as well as Scorpion Fish and Crested Blennies.

Northern Scorpion Fish on Diadema Rock

Dive Data
||  Depth: 32.05m |  Time:  62 mins |  SAC Rate: 14.39L/Min | Temp: 15 degrees |

Dive Five – Homestead Reef

A little dusk adventure time.  The swell was reasonable but we could manage it – us intrepid adventurers.

I think John spent most of the weekend planning ways to send us off in search of dive sites and then watching our bubbles and laughing to himself.  However his directions were spot on and Jono, Francois, Veronika and I took off to explore Homestead Reef.  It was basically a night dive by the time that we hit the reef and the visibility was terrible compared to the 30m or so that we had out at Volkner Rocks that day – but again the Pink Maomao were out and were interested in our torches.

Oh and I found a Spanish Lobster for the boys.
I hear Francois tried to grab it but I think his crayfish tickling skills need some improvement!!

Dive Data
||  Depth: 16.64m |  Time:  37 mins |  SAC Rate: 18.63L/Min | Temp: 15 degrees |

Dive Six – Red Snapper Rock

Trumpet Shell at Red Snapper Rock

First thing on Sunday morning and we headed straight back out to Volkner Rocks.
We were planning on diving the two massive rocks that make up the marine reserve – and yes, if possible, find some seals for Francois.

Red Snapper Rock is on the western side of Volkner Rocks and has a small channel circling around the massive rocks and heading up to a reef at 9m.
The channel was filled was massive fish – Porae and Blue Moki!  At least twice as big as what we see normally up at the Knights.  Jono and I spent some time cruising in the channel – checking out the fish and a few small Clown Nudibranchs and some shells, and then headed around the channel and up over the reef.  Thats where I shot the video of Jono – from a previous post – Rocking out at Volkner Rocks..

Dive Data

||  Depth: 20.25m |  Time:  64 mins |  SAC Rate: 15.38L/Min | Temp: 15 degrees |

Dive Seven – Central Spire

Our last dive and again, the visibility was amazing.
Francois was actually chasing seals although they were trying to avoid him like the plague.

We were all pretty full of nitrogen after all the diving over the weekend so we headed down to our maximum depth – an easy 30m and then spent the rest of the dive in the sunshine slowly heading up to a safety stop depth.

We found a lovely swim through where we shot some more video and we also found either practice ammunition shells or something else hidden in one of the crevices.

I was pretty tired during this dive and was watching my NDL’s so I was quite happy just to cruise around checking out the rock formations which are nothing like what we normally dive up north.

Dive Data
||  Depth: 31.87m |  Time:  55 mins |  SAC Rate: 14.06L/Min | Temp: 15 degrees |

With a huge thanks to John Baker – and to Dylan – and hugs all around to my weekend dive buddies Jono, Veronika, Francois, Tony, Brent and Ben.  I had an excellent three days out at White Island and Volkner Rocks.
Before I left, John and I booked another weekend so we will be heading back at Labour Weekend!  Can’t wait!!

Francois made an excellent video of the weekend

White Island Live Aboard
Uploaded by ozfrancois. – Explore new destinations and travel videos.

Poor Knights Islands – Lance’s weekend Video

Lance was one of my Advanced Open Water students this weekend.

Thank you Lance for putting this video up on YouTube!