Opunake in Spring

Spring is a wonderful season here in New Zealand. Trees regrow their green canopies and gardens burst with wildlife. The ocean also undergoes a transformation with the water temps slowly coming back up prompting the start of the mating season for many marine creatures.

For me it is a time to observe the hustle and bustle of the underwater world, so I decided to take my first dive of Spring off the Old Wharf in Opunake, Taranaki. The shore dive is not spectacularly deep but it does offer the opportunity to mix with many different beasties.

The water was a bit murky with visibility at only a metre or so but that made it a bit more exciting. The only thing I had to watch for was large boulders which have a tendency to rush at you in the surging conditions (I've had more bumps to my head than I care to remember through surge-surfing underwater boulder mazes!) As my dive progressed I noticed the large number of kina (sea urchins) covering the reef. This was a sad sight as it demonstrated that the local Snapper population was insufficient to control the spread of these pests.

Elsewhere on the reef crayfish poked their feelers out from under boulders whist sheltering from the midday sunlight, Red Moki grazed away on their well groomed patches of muticoloured vegetation, and stingrays passed within centimetres of me coming silently out of the murk presumably to check out who the mystery diver was on their reef. At one point I stumbled upon an extremely large octopus which momentarily paused to take a look at me before it got back to its business of hunting down a crayfish in a hole.

All too soon it was time to leave the underwater world and get back to shore where my wife was waiting patiently for me.
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Photo Credit: Young, I.M., 2007 (September 16), The old wharf at Opunake. All rights reserved.

Time for gear servicing

Today is an unpleasant winters day with plenty of wind and rain; not exactly ideal for diving but great for getting all the dive kit out on the workbench for a thorough check over.

Amoungst all the gear I checked was my old Inspo' rebreather electronics. These "Classic" APD Inspiration electronics have the new style co-axial wiring loom and use R22D-AP oxygen cells. I gently took the lid assembly apart and unscrewed the cells from the cell holder to test the mV output of the cells. Each cell's reading was a very basic reflection of their general fitness and mine were at the end of their useful life. Once the lid was reassembled, without the cells, it was cleaned as necessary before being packed away for storage in its container.
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Photo Credit: Young, D.C., 2007 (July 1), AP Diving R22D-AP oxygen cells. All rights reserved.

OZTek7 in Sydney 17-18 March

OZTek7 kicks off in Sydney, Australia, on March 17. The two day technical diving conference and exhibition has almost every technical dive gear manufacturer in the industry showcasing their latest and greatest innovations, and more distinguished speakers than you could ever shake a stick at!

At the last OZTek, I found that there wasn't enough time in the day to visit all the exhibitors stands and attend the many seminars/workshops. Careful planning is required to avoid disappointment. There was a workshop held by Simon Mitchell that turned out to be so popular that the organisers, Richard Taylor and David Strike, had to quickly amend the programme to try and fit in another workshop session to appease the masses that never managed to squeeze into the first workshop.

Pete Mesley is going to do a presentation on his and Simon Mitchell's recent dive on the Port Kembla. Simon Mitchell is presenting a seminar on "Prevention of decompression sickness for technical divers in the 21st century" and holding a workshop session titled "Respiratory physiology at extreme depth: Lessons from the Dave Shaw accident that deep divers should understand".

You can visit the OZTek7 website and see who the exhibitors and the speakers are at this link here: OZTek7 Dive Show. Tickets are available at the door of the venue (held at the Australian Technology Park, Locomotive Workshop Eveleigh).

Port Kembla rediscovered

Here is the official post by Simon Mitchell to the Dive-Oz diving discussion forum about the shipwreck I blogged about on February 12.

Port Kembla wreck dived Posted - 13 February 2007 : 10:47:07 AM Gidday, A small team from Auckland has located and dived the wreck of the "Port Kembla" in 96m some 8 miles west of Farewell Spit (top of the South Island). This wreck was significant in that she was lost to a mine in 1917 left by the same German raider that laid the mine that sank the Cumberland off southern NSW. As is often the case, local fishermen had marks they believed to be the wreck but there was no contemporary confirmation of that. The wreck had not been dived previously. We dived the wreck last Friday and Saturday. It is a stunning site, or at least it was on the days we were there. A good 30 - 40m viz on the bottom with natural light to burn and the wreck was covered in fish. We did not begin to see the whole thing, but it was positively identified from plates bearing the company insignia (Commonwealth and Dominion Shipping Company). We also found the ship's bell. The mode of sinking is not the only similarity with the Cumberland. The site also lies in very exposed and difficult waters; at the entrance to Cook Strait which is famous for its inclement weather and strong currents. Travelling to dive it will always be a bit of a gamble, but potentially with great rewards if our experience is anything to go by. The team was: master and mate - Tony and Nick (local fishermen); deck boss - Geoff Payne; local logistics and deck support - Brian (Nelson diver); bottom divers - Pete Mesley and Simon Mitchell; safety diver - Dave Young; topside video and research - Mike Fraser. I will post a couple of stills from the video when they become available. Simon M.

The article and forum discussion can be found here: Dive-Oz Discussion Forums/Technical Diving - Wreck Diving/Port Kembla wreck dived

There are pictures of the expedition on Pete Mesley's website and they can be found here: Port Kembla Expedition 2007
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Article Credit: Mitchell, S., Port Kembla wreck dived, 2007 (February 13), Dive-Oz Web Services. All rights reserved.
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Virgin shipwreck

I'm just back from an expedition to locate and verify the identity of a 90 year old shipwreck lying off the coast of New Zealand. Two rebreather divers conducted two days of diving in about 100m of water and found items that will confirm the name of the vessel.

More details will be posted along with photos very shortly.

News article about Nigel Lees' Inquest

Below is an article I stumbled across on the internet about the inquest held for Nigel Lees, my rebreather diving buddy who tragically died a while back. At the time of the accident, everyone involved was cautioned not to reveal any details until the inquest had run its due course. A month ago the Blenheim Coroner held the inquest and the findings were made public.

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Diver error cause of rebreather scuba diving fatality

by CYBER DIVER News Network - Original source: Marlborough Express

Marlborough, New Zealand (Dec 22, 2006)

A diver who drowned at Ship Cove last year had failed to turn on his oxygen providing rebreather equipment properly.

At an inquest this week Blenheim coroner Peter Radich found Nigel Peter Lees, 48 of Stratford, died of hypoxia with subsequent drowning on September 22, 2005, the result of the misuse of equipment.

A Police National Dive Squad report presented at the inquest stated Mr Lees had been diving alone off a chartered boat in good conditions to check his gear. He was also planning to clear mussels off the mooring line and collect crayfish.

Mr Lees, his wife Bronwyn and several other divers had charted the boat, the Sandpiper, to dive the Lermontov wreck and other wrecks over four days.

The report stated that because Mr Lees' electronic handsets were not turned on, additional oxygen was not being put into the system to compensate that being lost.

The report noted Mr Lees was an experienced diver and methodical in the maintenance of his equipment. However he went diving alone, which the report states is against safe diving practice and he failed to ensure his equipment was on. Mr Lees' equipment was in good condition prior to the dive, the report said.

Diver David Young, who was part of the dive trip, brought Mr Lees' body to the surface after the group became worried about how long he had been in the water for. He stated in written brief that he found Mr Lees lying face up at a depth of 15m with his rebreather switches turned off.

Mr Young said CPR compressions were attempted from the boat, unsuccessfully.

Mr Radich said the long delay between Mr Lees' death and the inquest was because the diving equipment was sent to England, where it was manufactured, to be investigated.

He said Mr Lees' death was "yet another diving death which highlights the dangers of diving" and the need for correct practices where equipment was concerned.
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Link to article at CDNN

Dive safe for 2007

A big thanks to everyone who visits my New Zealand Rebreather Diver blog, your comments are what keeps it going.

2006 has been a slow year for my diving, but hopefully 2007 will see far more diving blogs from me as I'm taking up underwater photography and will share with you all the wonders that I encounter on my dives.

Have a fantastic 2007, and if you're a diver, dive safe.


Dave

Two very different dives

On Saturday, December 17th, I was at the Poor Knights diving off the Yukon Dive Charters boat "Arrow". The rest of the divers aboard were all experienced divers so our skipper Noel anchored up at a site called "The Canyon" where black coral trees could be found in the depths.

Dive 1 - The Canyon

I dived with Greg van der Hulst, Pete Mesley, and Greg Lowe, who were all diving rebreathers. After getting into the 16C water, we descended down to the 50m mark and swam along the gently sloping white sand bottom. Quite quickly it was time for Greg Lowe to start his ascent back up the Canyon's walls to reduce his decompression obligations which were restricted by the amount of bailout he had available for the depth he was diving.

Pete had his camera and took photos of anything that was of interest. This included assorted nudibranchs and the rarer fish species which hide well away from the more popular diver trails. Greg van der Hulst managed to pose in the background as an aesthetic enhancement (eye candy!) for most of Pete's pictures.

We discovered a magnificent specimen of a black coral tree as we made our way back into the Canyon's entrance. It sat perched on the side of a large boulder and sprouted its many limbs far out into the food rich waters that flowed through the passageway. At about 45m I discovered a crayfish that showed no fear at all as Greg and myself poked our heads into its dark hiding place.

Our ascent took us back up the rich and colourful walls. The decompression penalties we incurred from the deeper section of our dive passed easily as there was just so much to see with every bit of wall covered in something different. Greg Lowe joined us and we did some of our decompression stops together, but when his deco was over he signalled that he was heading back to the boat. After a runtime of an hour and forty minutes, we all ascended from our last stop and returned to the boat.


Dive 2 - Imagination Point

The surface interval went by and it was soon time for my second dive. I opted to solo dive for this one because I was going to be on my SS-18 underwater scooter. The dive site was "Imagination Point" off the southern end of Archway Island.

Everyone was already in the water long before I jumped in. After a quick adjustment of the towing sling and the setting of the props pitch to number 5, I powered up the scooter and slowly descended to 30m. It was strange hearing the whine of the motor in contrast to the silence of the first dive but I didn't really care about it as I was enjoying myself way too much! I headed off in the opposite direction to all the divers and zoomed around the corner in a northerly direction.

Large overhanging ledges and deep cuts in the wall whizzed passed in a blur, barely giving me time to survey any of their hidden treasures so I released the power switch periodically and made a point of exploring the walls. It was soon time to start my no-deco ascent so I traversed backwards and forwards whilst slowly ascending a couple of metres a minute. When I got back to Arrow, Noel assisted me by taking the 32Kg scooter out of the water for me.

The dives were done on my AP Inspiration electronics which I had just got back from the factory in England. They worked perfectly on both my dives, but I'll keep them as a backup option to the Hammerhead electronics I mentioned in my last blog.
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Photo Credit: Young, I.M., 2006 (December 17), Looking north from The Canyon dive site. All rights reserved.
Photo Credit: Young, I.M., 2006 (December 17), Post-dive at The Canyon. All rights reserved.
Photo Credit: Young, I.M., 2006 (December 17), Dave Young with Pete Mesley in the background. All rights reserved.
Photo Credit: Young, I.M., 2006 (December 17), Aorangi Island and Ngoio Rock looking from Imagination Point. All rights reserved.

Hammerhead

I now have a Juergensen Marine Hammerhead to replace my Ambient Pressure "Classic" electronics. The DIVA is the item that I'm most excited about because it will give me the additional feature of a heads-up-display to monitor how the rebreather is performing throughout the dive.

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Photo Credit: Young, D.C., 2006 (December 2), Hammerhead Inspiration during calibration. All rights reserved.

The Rusty Ruskie revisited

The dive trip to the Mikhail Lermontov (affectionately known as the "Rusty Ruskie") kicked off on Friday (November 3rd) aboard the charter boat “Affinity” which was berthed at Picton in the Marlborough Sounds. Ian Swan and myself were joined by a few other like minded wreck divers from New Zealand and Australia. Once the dive gear was loaded and stowed we set sail up the tranquil Queen Charlotte Sound to Ship Cove where we moored up for the night.

Ship Cove is where fellow diver Nigel Lees tragically lost his life just over a year ago in a diving accident. Memories of the incident replayed through my head leaving me feeling both sad and angry at the loss. When we set sail for Port Gore early in the morning I was very glad to be leaving despite the natural beauty of the surroundings.

Affinity soon passed around the infamous Cape Jackson and over the Pelham Rock which gouged the holes that were to eventually sink the ‘Mikhail Lermontov’ back on February 16th, 1986. We were soon at the Lermontov's final resting place in Port Gore where the Baltic Shipping Company liner lay on its starboard side in 37m of water.

I dived with Ian and we chose to visit the Lermontov’s stern where the covered swimming pool, gymnasium, and hospital were located on their various descending decks. We were blessed with the best visibility I’ve ever encountered in Port Gore and the water was a pleasant 13°C. Neither Ian or myself did any penetration into the ship on this dive but merely acquainted ourselves with the layout and even had time to fin the 155m from the stern to the bow, passing some eerily empty cabins and the ships bridge en route.

The second dive of the day saw Ian diving with Anna and Marcia where they did a penetration into the bridge. When everyone was off the Lermontov, I did a solo dive with a paint scrapper and a scrubbing brush in hand and went to the swimming pool to clean some of the heavily encrusted windows. This allowed some daylight to pour in and illuminated the Neptun(e) Bar in natural light. Here I found unopened cans of beer and packets of cigarettes behind the bar counter.

The swimming pool is also the home to a commemorative plaque for diver Erica Lowe who died whilst diving the Lermontov back in May 1987. She became separated from the rest of her dive group and it was a over a year before her body was discovered by some divers. I attempted to give the plaque a wee bit of a clean while I was there.

The borrowed Inspiration rebreather electronics I was using performed flawlessly throughout their use, but needed drying off ready for the next day’s diving. Once the rebreather was broken down and excess moisture removed from the loop, I changed my 3 litre oxygen cylinder and topped up my diluent cylinder. That evening, everybody ate a hearty meal and talked mostly about diving until it was time to retire to bed.

Both Ian and myself were first in the water the next morning and planned to dive to the kiosk storeroom. This took us back to the pool and down through some broken panes of glass into a passageway that lay level with the seabed. I led and reeled off line with Ian close behind. After negotiating a low hanging door, we arrived at the store. Ian had a look around and observed the weird sight of all the doll arms and legs that were floating at the top of the room. After I managed to stir up the silt from the rotting packages in the room, I suggested to Ian it was time to leave by the same route we took in. We exited without any fuss and visited lots of places on the exterior of the ship whilst we slowly ascended through our designated decompression stops.

After our long surface interval, we told the dive supervisor that we were heading to the hospital area of the Lermontov. The visibility of the water was beginning to drop a bit, but this had no real impact on the already murky water around the props and rudder. With our HID lights switched on, we moved over to the hospital entrance and I tied off the line from my reel to the watertight door and began my penetration leaving Ian to keep watch from outside the doorway. Room after room passed above and below. I carefully counted and took note of the sequence of fixtures, doorways, double doors until I reached the “Waiting Room”. There is no natural light this deep into the ship but my light lit up the areas above and below me. I could see open cupboards and drawers where divers had scavenged artefacts from them over the years. All too soon it was time to return down the passageway and back to Ian.

Back aboard Affinity we waited for everyone to finish their dives. Once they were on the boat, we steamed over to a sandy slope in Port Gore where a few of us dived for scallops. On the seabed at 18m I found an unusually large spotted stargazer (Genyagnus monopterygius) which was not bothered by my presence and just lay motionless as I finned around it. I was the last to get out of the water and my evening meal was waiting for me “…in the oven!”. We spent the night anchored there, sheltering out of the wind that was blowing across the rest of the bay.

My last dive of the trip was on Monday morning with a change of electronics on the rebreather. Pete Mesley lent me his “Vision” rebreather electronics which incorporated a HUD and a single arm-mounted module for the controllers/secondary displays. The dive was planned for the Bolshoi Lounge with Ian. Upon entering the cavernous room through the doorway below the bridge we quickly came across the remnants of the ornate ceiling lights. Ian followed me over to a point where I tied off my line and waited for me as I went exploring deeper into the darker recesses of the ship. After I finished and had all my line back on the reel we casually checked out the lounge. This turned out to be a great dive but it was soon over as we had to leave the Lermontov’s confines to start our ascent for decompression. Once back on Affinity, we both knew the trip was coming to an end so we packed away our dive gear ready for the journey home.

This was a good trip with some great people sharing similar interests, particularly a love of rust. :o)
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Photo Credit: Swan, I., 2006 (November 6), Cape Jackson and the Jackson Head Beacon on the Walker Rock. All rights reserved.
Photo Credit: Swan, I., 2006 (November 4), Port Gore seen from the deck of Affinity. All rights reserved.
Photo Credit: Swan, I., 2006 (November 4), The encrusted swimming pool windows. All rights reserved.
Photo Credit: Swan, I., 2006 (November 4), Commemorative plaque to Erica Lowe. All rights reserved.
Photo Credit: Swan, I., 2006 (November 5), Dive gear on affinity. All rights reserved.
Photo Credit: Swan, I., 2006 (November 5), A sea anemone on the encrusted rails of the Lermontov. All rights reserved.
Photo Credit: Swan, I., 2006 (November 7), A sign in Russian. All rights reserved.

Pictures from the Poor Knights

A crested blenny (Parablennius laticlavius) sits on an encrusted ledge.

A Yaldwyn's triplefin (Notoclinops yaldwyni) weighing in at only 7cm long.

A diver in Matt's Crack (aka Long Cave).

Dive Tutukaka's charter boats in the marina.

Rebreather divers preparing to enter the water at Shaft Cave for a 85m dive.

A fish filled swim-through at Bartle's Bay.

Two gem nudibranchs (Dendrodoris gemmacea).

Ian Swan after his second dive of the day.
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Photo Credit: Swan, I., 2006 (October 14), A crested blenny (Parablennius laticlavius) sits on an encrusted ledge. All rights reserved.
Photo Credit: Swan, I., 2006 (October 14), A Yaldwyn's triplefin (Notoclinops yaldwyni). All rights reserved.
Photo Credit: Swan, I., 2006 (October 14), A diver in Matt's Crack (aka Long Cave). All rights reserved.
Photo Credit: Young, D.C., 2006 (October 15), Dive Tutukaka's charter boats in the marina. All rights reserved.
Photo Credit: Swan, I., 2006 (October 15), Rebreather divers preparing to enter the water at Shaft Cave for a 85m dive. All rights reserved.
Photo Credit: Swan, I., 2006 (October 15), A fish filled swim-through at Bartle's Bay. All rights reserved.
Photo Credit: Swan, I., 2006 (October 15), Two gem nudibranchs (Dendrodoris gemmacea). All rights reserved.
Photo Credit: Young, D.C., 2006 (October 15), Ian Swan after his second dive of the day. All rights reserved.

Sunday 15th - The Poor Knights

Sunday started off with a moderately overcast sky but the winds were slight and the sea was flat for the journey to the Poor Knights. Luke our skipper took Bright Arrow to the western side of Arorangaia Island where Pete, Simon, and Greg planned to enter the water at Shaft cave for their 85m deep trimix rebreather dive.

Before the start of their dive, Simon gave everyone on the boat another quick reading from an article known here in this blog as "Paul - A Zen Master's Journal". This work of genius brought us much joy through laughter and inspired all to have a good read of a dictionary. ;o)

Dive 1 - The Tunnel

Ian and myself decided to dive at another site closeby known as The Tunnel. It consists of a large 120m long archway that penetrates all the way through Arorangaia Island going down to a depth of 60m at the western entrance and then slowly ascends with a rock covered bottom to about 15m at the eastern end.

Despite Ian's underwater camera housing being rated only to 40m, we ascended to the bottom of the western entrance of the archway. Here we found a little beach of white sand between the large boulders that once clung to the steep cliffs of the island. Swimming along the northern wall of the archway and following the natural incline of the floor we found that the light dropped off to hazy blue glow. Here we found a massive shoal of the reclusive golden snapper (Centroberyx affinis) that were hiding in the darkness waiting for nightfall to start feeding. I managed to get within centimetres of the shoal on my rebreather and had them follow me as I moved from the northern wall to the southern wall of The Tunnel.

Delicate flask sponges clung to the walls where the light managed to penetrate. I came across large ledges and holes that were completely covered in encrusting growth and marine life. This became more and more abundant as we moved up and back toward the western entrance.

Mary and Scott silently swam passed us on their rebreathers near the 30m mark. After exchanging gestures, Ian and myself moved further up the wall and out of The Tunnel. Our decompression stops offered plenty of photo opportunities.

One little surprise we had was Ian's dive computer suddenly demanding an additional 30 minutes of decompression time at the shallow stop. This was not to much of a problem for me, but Ian was diving a drysuit and wished he had an overboard discharge valve fitted. After 110 minutes of runtime our dive ended with a wee swim back to the boat.

Dive 2 - Bartle's Bay

I missed out on this dive due to my rebreather's right controller/handset failing to switch on. It did eventually startup, but I thought it prudent not to dive the unit in this condition. Ian had a great dive and ended up in a tight swim-through filled with mado (Atypichthys latus) and other fish.


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Photo Credit: Swan, I., 2006 (October 15), Simon Mitchell gives a reading from 'Paul - A Zen Master's Journal'. All rights reserved.
Photo Credit: Swan, I., 2006 (October 15), A sea star moving slowly across the encrusted wall. All rights reserved.
Photo Credit: Swan, I., 2006 (October 15), Flask sponge. All rights reserved.
Photo Credit: Swan, I., 2006 (October 15), Firebrick sea star. All rights reserved.
Photo Credit: Swan, I., 2006 (October 15), Nudibrach. All rights reserved.
Photo Credit: Swan, I., 2006 (October 15), Rebreather diver in a swim-through at Bartle's Bay. All rights reserved.

Saturday 14th - The Poor Knights

Ian Swan and myself drove up to Tutukaka on the Friday 13th for a weekend of diving the Poor Knights Marine Reserve. We joined fellow divers Pete Mesley and Simon Mitchell at the Schnappa Rock Cafe by the Tutukaka Marina later that evening for an outstanding meal (there's new management and it's now serving the best meals I've had in the 5 years that I've been going there!).

Saturday morning kicked off with a gentle offshore breeze. We loaded our gear onto the Dive Tutukaka boat "Bright Arrow" and headed off on the 12 mile journey to the Poor Knights with Luke our skipper for the weekend. The divers onboard were Mary (an Inspo rebreather diver over from the UK), Greg (diving the "Sprayer", a modified Dolphin rebreather), Scott (twinset, normally an Inspo Classic rebreather), Brian (twinset), Ian (twinset), Pete (Inspo Vision rebreather), Simon (Mk15.5 rebreather), Christian (Inspo Classic rebreather), and myself (Inspo Classic rebreather).

Dive 1 - Cream Garden

Our first dive site was Cream Garden on the eastern side of Tawhiti Rahi Island. Ian and myself were last divers to enter the clear 16°C water, but we quickly made our way down the encrusted wall to the sandy bottom at 58m.

Large finger sponges dominated the walls at this depth and extended their reach far from the wall where they gently swayed in the dark blue water. There was a fine mist of descending dust particles that had been dislodged by divers further above us on the wall which were clearly visible and created the backscatter effect (the white splodges) on Ian's photographs.

We encountered many yellow moray and grey moray eels which clung to the wall waiting open mouthed and tightly sprung ready to snatch their next meal.

This yellow moray had it's head in a hole allowing Ian to photograph it's coiled tail.

As the dive progressed and we made our way slowly into the shallows for our decompression stops, the life on the wall multiplied tenfold. Colours became more vibrant as the sunlight penetrated through from the surface. A multitude of species of fish swam around us, inquisitively investigating what we might be looking at with our faces so close to the wall.

The highlight of diving Cream Garden has to be the opportunity to be checked out by the resident bronze whaler sharks, but unfortunately, they didn't appear during this dive. The rebreather electronics give out an electrical pulse every time the solenoid fires and this is thought to attract the sharks.

At 6m, I ran my rebreather as an oxygen rebreather breathing 100% oxygen to assist with my decompression and to check that my electronics were functioning within specification (a linearity check). Kingfish and butterfish swam around me playfully as the gentle surge moved the kelp from side to side on the ledge I had stopped on. The dive was over after one and half hours underwater.

Dive 2 - Matt's Crack

I skipped the second dive at Matt's Crack (the more politically correct name of Long Cave is often used) but Ian took his camera into the 100m long cave and captured some amazing images. He spent an hour exploring the cave along with the other divers on the boat. The water was crystal clear and the fish life was abundant.

With everyone onboard Bright Arrow, Luke took us back to Tutukaka over the swell free sea. Only wind chop from the blowing westerly stopped the water from being completely flat. When we arrived back in port Ian dropped off his tanks at Dive Tutukaka to get refilled for the next day of diving.
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Photo Credit: Swan, I., 2006 (October 14), Luke overseeing an Inspo diver entering the water at Cream Garden. All rights reserved.
Photo Credit: Swan, I., 2006 (October 14), Finger sponges at 55m. All rights reserved.
Photo Credit: Swan, I., 2006 (October 14), Grey moray eel and an orange golf ball sponge. All rights reserved.
Photo Credit: Swan, I., 2006 (October 14), Yellow moray with its head in a hole. All rights reserved.
Photo Credit: Swan, I., 2006 (October 14), A sea star grazing on the wall in the depths. All rights reserved.
Photo Credit: Swan, I., 2006 (October 14), Demoiselles hiding in Matt's Crack. All rights reserved.
Photo Credit: Swan, I., 2006 (October 14), Two-spot demoiselles shoaling in Matt's Crack. All rights reserved.

Diving in the Bay of Plenty

Today I was in Mount Maunganui and had a super wee shore dive. My mission was to look for the discarded eggcases of the paper nautilus (Argonauta Nodosa and Argonauta Argo). The last time I dived the site the eggcases were everywhere and some were completely intact whilst others were shattered in pieces amongst the boulders. Unfortunately this dive was quite different because there wasn't even a trace of a paper nautilus eggcase anywhere.

Still, not all was lost. On the dive I encountered eagle rays that were very inquisitive about my presence and they kept on checking me out with a regular fly-past. The rocks at the deepest part of the dive were covered in clusters of squid eggs and skittish octopus looked out from the dark spaces between boulders. As I slowly ascended the white sands towards the beach a huge long-tailed stingray stopped me in my path. It lay on the bottom and stared at me with its large eyes. Normally I would have joined it on the sand but I was running out of time to be back on the surface for my wife to clock me in, so I ascended a bit and swam over the top of the beast. It never moved and its tail remained motionless as I swan further up the beach leaving it behind to bathe in the sun drenched water of the South Pacific Ocean.

I felt really good after the dive. It was an awesome privilege to see all the different species of fish and marine animals in their own environment. :o)
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Photo Credit: Young, I.M., 2006 (September 20), Mount Maunganui beach. All rights reserved.
Photo Credit: Young, I.M., 2006 (September 20), The Mount. All rights reserved.

Port Taranaki underwater pictures

The pictures below were taken by Ian Swan on our dive in Port Taranaki on the 29th July, using his Olympus C5050Z digital camera and underwater housing.

The image above shows a shrimp hiding in a dark hole between some boulders of the Lee Breakwater in Port Taranaki. As you can see, they are quite transparent and this must aid them to camouflage with their surroundings.

Crayfish often frequent the boulder slopes of the breakwater. They often come in from deeper water to cast their old shells and wait around until their new shells have hardened.

This seahorse saw us coming and decided that it didn't want to be photographed so it did its best to hide up against the boulder wall of the breakwater. Ian took this photo and moved away quickly so not to bother it any further.

The yellow encrusting sponges are a common sight around the breakwater. Their bright colour always contrasts greatly with the grey dust covered rocks that they inhabit.
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Photo Credit: Swan, I., 2006 (July 29), A shrimp hiding in the rocks. All rights reserved.
Photo Credit: Swan, I., 2006 (July 29), Small red spiny lobster (crayfish) holding its ground. All rights reserved.
Photo Credit: Swan, I., 2006 (July 29), A camera shy seahorse. All rights reserved.
Photo Credit: Swan, I., 2006 (July 29), Yellow encrusting sponge with a native seashell on it. All rights reserved.

Pier dive in Port Taranaki

At high tide today, Ian Swan and I found ourselves looking into some of the cleanest looking water that I've ever seen inside Port Taranaki. This sort of visibility usually only ever occurs during the settled weather of summer so it came as quite a plus to have it now during our mid-winter period.

We both chose to dive in our wetsuits. I was planning to wear my drysuit but Ian called me "soft" so I pulled on my wetsuit for the dive. We entered the water next to the old boat mooring pylons on the Lee Breakwater. To my dismay, I found the water felt rather cold as it percolated through the wetsuit; it was a not so warm 12ºC!

On Thursday, Ian had found a couple of octopus and seahorses in the area of the pier legs and wanted to photograph them today with his Olympus C5050Z digital camera and underwater housing. So with this objective in mind, we descended down the short rocky slope to the sandy bottom below the pier and started our search for the creatures. The pier legs were covered in bryozoans, orange sponges, and little patches of kelp. Some small triplefins and blennies tried their best to blend in with their backgrounds by playing the game of staying completely still and hiding in plain view, whilst others didn’t seem to care and just carried on buzzing about with their daily routines.

The junk that has been lost to the sea from the moorings is something else. We found assorted bottles, wire strops, tyres, ropes, metal objects of all shapes and sizes; all completely encrusted and sporting a common patchy grey colour with only their shapes giving away their possible true identity.

The sand to the outside of the pier was peppered with large horse mussels that seemed to be feeding voraciously from their gaping shells. Other than the mussels, there was only the odd spotty and sea cucumber to be seen.

We moved from along the length of pier, going from one set of pylons to the next still searching for the octopus. Ian would check out the pier and while I looked on the rocky slope. Unfortunately, we never found the octopus, but we did find a solitary seahorse (Hippocampus abdominalis, or big-belled seahorse) clinging to the base of a stalked kelp. It was clearly quite shy as it turned its head away from the camera, so we didn’t stay long with it preferring to not stress it out.

After leaving the pier, Ian and I swam along the bottom of the rocky slope following the breakwater out to the mouth of the harbour. The boulders soon changed to large concrete blocks which made up the structure of the breakwater. These blocks were also encrusted grey but sported orange nipple sponges and yellow finger sponges. Small crayfish, transparent shrimps, and slender roughy (Optivus elongatus) peered out from the dark spaces in the concrete boulder field.

We called our dive after 73 minutes. The cold of the water had played havoc with my kidneys and I felt like my bladder was going to explode because it was so full. The climb out of the water and onto the Lee Breakwater required traversing the concrete blocks with a full set of dive gear on and our fins in our hands, so great care was needed not to fall down into any of the large gaps.

This was a good dive and really enjoyed it, especially getting to dive in such clear conditions at this time of the year. The forecast for tomorrow is a 3m swell, winds from the west and that will be the end of the diving for a wee while.

APD parts - some self-assembly required

This morning a courier turned up at my door with a small parcel from the UK. Inside was my replacement mouthpiece and head strap. Joy! A big thanks has to go to Ambient Pressure Diving for getting the parts to me so quickly (ordered on Monday evening NZ time and here at my door by noon Friday).

The kit came in two parts and it looked like there could be a couple of ways to assemble the mouthpiece and head strap, so I turned to the internet to try and find a photo or maybe some instructions for its assembly. After a long while it was looking like there was no way I'd get the information I needed.

I've taken my best bet as to the correct build for fastening the head strap to the lugs on the mouthpiece. Put it this way, it appears to work as I'd expect it to and it's highly unlikely that I can go back without damaging something. Now all I have to do is locate some Ty-Rap® cable ties to secure the mouthpiece to the dive valve.
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UPDATE: 10:07 AM, SATURDAY, JULY 29, 2006
• Added a new picture to the blog.

I got hold of a Ty-Rap® cable tie this morning, so here is a picture of the Inspo dive valve with the mouthpiece fitted to it. "Bring out the gimp!" ;o)
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Photo Credit: Young, D.C., 2006 (July 28), Mouthpiece and head strap kit. All rights reserved.
Photo Credit: Young, D.C., 2006 (July 29), Inspo dive valve with mouthpiece fitted. All rights reserved.

Buying essential dive gear

Today I purchased a new bit of kit for my rebreather from Ambient Pressure – part number AP02/12 which is a replacement rubber mouthpiece with head strap attached. This new mouthpiece has the advantage of staying in a diver's mouth should they become incapacitated whilst diving. An example of when a diver may lose their mouthpiece during a rebreather dive, is if they experience a convulsion (a seizure) brought on by exposure to a high partial pressure of oxygen, known as hyperoxia. The theory is, if a diver should be unlucky enough to have a convulsion underwater with a head strap in place there is a good chance that the mouthpiece is still in their mouth when the seizure finally subsides, and they can recover enough to take a breath from the rebreather. Without a head strap it's more than likely that the diver will lose the mouthpiece from their mouth and that greatly increases the odds of drowning. :o(

The cost of this simple device is £48.20 (plus P&P and NZ import duties) which might appear a bit pricy, but I think it will be worth it.

Northern Arch in the Poor Knights

Saturday 15th was looking very dodgy with regard to the weather. It was forecast for the winds to blow to 35 knots from the southeast, thus making the 12 mile trip out to the Poor Knights Islands Marine Reserve a very bumpy and uncomfortable one. In the end, the decision to go was made by our charter company, Dive Tutukaka, so we loaded 'Bright Arrow' (our boat for the trip) with our rebreathers, twinsets, underwater cameras, toolboxes and what seemed like every other bit of dive gear known to man.

The dive crew for the day were Scott Alker (OC twinset), Mark Gibson (CC Inspo), Greg Lowe (CC Inspo), Pete Mesley (CC Inspo), Gary Palmer (OC twinset), Ian Swan (OC twinset), and myself (CC Inspo). Our skipper for the day was Craig.

Whilst we were loading our gear onto the boat a call came in over the VHF radio requesting assistance from the Tutukaka Coastguard for a diver who had ascended quickly to the surface from the wreck of the HMNZS Waikato (a Leander class frigate sunk for diving off the Ngunguru estuary). They were requesting additional oxygen supplies as a precaution, so we set off to the Waikato and readied our oxygen kit should they require it. The journey there took a matter of minutes from leaving Tutukaka Harbour although the low profile of the moored RIB was difficult to spot initially amoungst the white capping swells. The diver was conscious and receiving oxygen administered by the skipper of the boat, so we stationed Bright Arrow near them should they have needed any additional assistance. Within a few minutes the Tutukaka Coastguard were in attendance, so we requested leave from the scene and left the Coastguard to evacuate the diver.

The journey to Poor Knights was quite rough as we fell into large troughs in the swells, but I positioned myself as far forward in Bright Arrow as possible and could look out at the horizon… a technique that seems to offset the urge to throw up (I've been known to be seasick in the past!) All the dive gear was stowed or tied down on the deck and seemed to be surviving the 50 minute crossing.


Dive 1

The sky was grey with showery clouds, but the large cliffs of the islands provided a welcome contrast. The swell and wind direction dictate which dive sites are accessible at the Poor Knights, and it looked very favourable for Northern Arch in the Tawhiti Rahi Island as being our first dive site. When we got there, Bright Arrow was out of the strong winds and we listened to Craig's dive site briefing. Dive buddy groups were established: Pete and Scott, Gary and Ian, Mark and I. Greg was going to conduct the first part of his dive with Gary and Ian and later join Mark and I when we were in a shallower part of our dive.

Looking down on the surface of the water, I could see it had that dark blue, almost black colour about it which usually means that the visibility would be fantastic. The excitement of dive was brewing up inside me as I pulled on my drysuit… no wait that was just a trapped fart which was quickly and somewhat noisily vented into the cabin. With the drysuit fully vented and zipped up, I pulled on my rebreather and began the 5 minute pre-breathe to activate the scrubber and check that it was working. The controllers read a steady 0.7 across all the displays and I could feel the gases in the loop become moist and warm. Craig assisted me with putting on my side-slung tank, and I was ready to get in the 15ºC water.

At 6m of depth, Mark and I did a bubble check before beginning our descent down the wall. The water was crystal clear and I could see right down into the blue below us. At 40m I paused my descent to check that everything was okay with the gear, made some necessary adjustments, and continued downwards. The slope of the wall took us to 58m where large boulders lay on the volcanic bedrock of the island. There were large finger sponges, and by contrast, some very small black coral trees hanging onto the rocks, but what caught my eye were the swim-throughs in the lava outcrops and I couldn't resist venturing through them. Mark met me on the far side of one such swim-through and then we set off to explore the rest of the archways' secrets.

Slowly ascending the boulder strewn slopes took us to the top of the mound which formed the bottom of the archway at 38m. Here we met up with Gary, Ian and Greg who were traversing back along the western wall. Mark and I pushed against the noticeable currents and found the white sandy beach that disappeared into the blue at the southern end of the arch's floor. Large porae and long finned boar fish swam about ignoring our invasion of their territory. Unfortunately, we didn't see any of the stingrays which often frequent Northern Arch.

Due to the weather threatening to get nasty we were on a short run time of 90 minutes maximum, so our ascent began and we were joined by Greg on the eastern wall for the deco stops. Here I found a beauty of a mosaic moray, wound into tight curls about itself whilst hiding in a small undercut in the wall. Its transparent needle sharp teeth were very evident every time it opened its mouth… I've seen how fast and efficiently these beasts strike at their prey, so I kept my gloveless hands well away. Shortly after leaving the mosaic moray, Mark discovered a small female crayfish (red spiny rock lobster) in a vertical cut.

The wall was covered in colourful sponges, soft corals, large gorgonian coral fans, and was absolutely crawling with life. Small crested blennies peered out from their tiny holes in the rock, triplefins preened their patches of encrusting growth, mature male Sandager's wrasse patrolled their territories, and the almost invisibly camouflaged northern scorpionfish hid on the ledges and in the cracks of the wall.

Poor Mark and Greg must have thought I was mad doing the entire ascent and deco stops with my face pressed up to the busy wall. Unknown to them I was on a mission, and my primary objective was to try and find a pigmy seahorse! I never managed to complete my mission as the little beggar remained illusive to my intensive searching, but there is always next time.

At final stop near Bright Arrow and we met up with Gary and Ian, and we could all see Scott and Pete conducting deco away from the wall at the end of a blob (or also known as a delayed surface marker buoy). After 81 minutes of run time, I was out of the water and back in the boat. During the surface interval, Craig made me a hot cup of spring vegetable soup which I had one sip of and managed to spill the rest over everyone’s dive gear… oops!


Dive 2

The next dive was near Trevor's Rock in a shallow bay with crystal clear water. Ian and I buddied each other for the 56 minute dive. Because my ADV (auto diluent-addition valve) was continually leaking diluent into my loop during the deco on the last dive, so I shut the ADV off with the shut-off valve and manually added diluent as required during this dive. At the deepest depth of 16m we looked for stingrays in the sandy beaches between the large boulders and kelp fields, but never found any. Ian took photos of the assorted nudibranchs that were scattered everywhere around the site and I followed large snapper about. I did spot a fish I hadn’t seen before, a large solitary silver drummer… score!

The journey back to Tutukaka promised to be very rough, so I made a wee bed for myself in the forward cabin and went to sleep. A couple of times I woke with my whole body freefalling back onto the bunk as Bright Arrow fought her way home through the bucking seas. Ian explained later that there were a few times the boat looked like it was going to be pummelled/swamped by huge breaking waves. I woke to the sound of someone being seasick, and looked out the window to see we’d made it back to Tutukaka’s harbour. Poor Greg made it all the way across the rough ocean, only to make a "Technicolor rainbow" when we reached calm waters.
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UPDATE: 6:23 PM, SATURDAY, JULY 22, 2006
• Added pictures to the blog.

My mate Ian Swan took the pictures in this blog on his Olympus C5050Z digital camera and underwater housing. All the pictures were taken in the bay near Trevor's Rock and at a depth between 6 to 15m. The first image shows a rebreather diver, some passing koheru, an inquisitive Sandager's wrasse, and kelp covered lava outcrops.

The second image is of an awesome looking yellow moray with its mouth gaping open. The beastie is curled up in a hole and would have been hiding there waiting for its next meal to naively swim by.

The third image is of the often hard to spot northern scorpionfish. The camouflage is so good that sometimes you get within inches of them before you realise that their sitting there. These fish are “gulpers”, so the mouth extends out at lightning speeds creating a partial vacuum in the water and the prey gets sucked back into its mouth.

The last image is of a snapper. They have large mouths with big teeth and can crush shells with them.
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Photo Credit: Swan, I., 2006 (July 15), Inspiration rebreather diver at the Poor Knights. All rights reserved.
Photo Credit: Swan, I., 2006 (July 15), Yellow moray. All rights reserved.
Photo Credit: Swan, I., 2006 (July 15), Northern scorpionfish. All rights reserved.
Photo Credit: Swan, I., 2006 (July 15), A mature snapper. All rights reserved.

Dive New Zealand magazine cover

I was browsing through my collection of Dive New Zealand magazines tonight when I stumbled across issue 86 (published back in February 2005). On the front cover there was a picture of an AP Inspiration rebreather diver diving amongst large finger sponges at 55m. This was the first ever rebreather picture to be featured on the Dive New Zealand magazine's cover and I was the diver in the photograph. Simon Mitchell took the photo whilst we were diving a wall at the Poor Knights Islands Marine Reserve.

The website for the Dive New Zealand magazine can be found at: http://www.divenewzealand.com/
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Image Credit: Dive New Zealand & Sea Tech Ltd (Publishers), 2005 (February), Dive New Zealand magazine cover, February/March 2005 issue 86. All rights reserved.

Southern right whales

We have had some southern right whales visiting our coastal waters off New Plymouth for the past week now. They appear to be females with calves and they have located themselves very close to the shore (no doubt sheltering from the winter storms pushing up from Antarctica).

They have been breaching and causally posing for photos all week, but I hope people will restrain themselves and not harass them to the point they move on prematurely.

Quick update

I'm sorry for it being so long since my last post. Any diving I have done has mainly been commercial work building an artificial surf reef here in New Zealand, so the rebreather diving has been neglected a wee bit. My next trip is to White Island for a weekend in mid July. :o)

Because of my absence from diving the rebreather for a couple of months, I've been practicing my skills by doing regular bailout drills with the unit on. I look like a complete idiot, but it keeps me well acquainted with the operation of the unit (which should reduce anxiety levels a bit should the brown stuff hit the fan during a dive.)

There is still no word of when they are going to hold the Coroners Inquest for Nigel Lees (my rebreather diving buddy and mate who was tragically killed in a diving related accident last year), but hopefully proceedings will get underway soon.

I'll sign off now. Thanks for reading this blog, and look out for my trip report from White Island in the next couple of weeks. Kia ora.

Big swell and low visibility

On Saturday I dived off Saddleback Island and Moturoa Island in the Sugar Loaf Islands Marine Protected Area (SLIMPA). There was about 20 knots of wind blowing from the North, a 3m ground swell running from the South-West, and a wind driven surface current pushing towards the South, which makes for some nasty and confused sea conditions.

Ian Swan's boat 'Nitrox' handled the conditions well and we found a spot off Saddleback Island where it was possible to enter the boiling water between swells. When I entered the water, a large wave raced towards me so I quickly duck-dived downwards into the dirty green water. The visibility was about 1m in the first 6m of descent and dropped steadily as I worked my way down the boulder strewn slope. Huge surges in the water column frequently pushed me around as the large swells brushed along the side of the island... I just love this kind of diving! It offers lots of excitement and thrills. :o)

Fish life was not very abundant and there were only a few crayfish to be seen hiding deep in their dark holes. The stormy water was obviously not as much fun for them as it was for me.

I ascended to within 3m of the surface and took a 3 minute safety stop after 47 minutes of runtime. It would not have been wise to try and conduct a decompression dive in these conditions, so I stayed well within the no-decompression dive time allowable. Ian picked me up in 'Nitrox' and then we headed over to Moturoa Island to find a suitable site for the next dive.

The water around Moturoa Island was even dirtier looking but strong currents run through here and offer patches of better visibility. I jumped in and found the visibility varied from 1m to 3m. Straight away I found seahorses clinging to some of the kelp in the rocks. Big blue moki swan over to me and checked me out. Meanwhile, small crayfish withdrew quickly when I pushed my head into the gaps they were occupying, but I can understand why... just imagine you were sitting in your house when suddenly a huge masked face appears through your windows, it would certainly be enough to make you recoil and seek a safer place to hide!

The dive site was relatively calm compared to Saddleback Island, but my time in the water was only 30 minutes. Again Ian manoeuvred 'Nitrox' in to pick me up and soon we were back in the shelter of Port Taranaki.

Diving images

Gareth Bellamy took this picture of me on my Inspiration rebreather whilst we were diving 'The Rock' at Archway Island in the Poor Knights Marine Reserve (Saturday, April 8th, 2006). Gareth's underwater camera system is a Pentax Optio 430RS and underwater housing.

Here is another of Gareth's pictures with me describing the size of some kingfish I had spotted in the water. A juvenile long-tailed stingray was doing the rounds and posed along with two-spot demoiselles and leatherjackets.

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Photo Credit: Bellamy, G.D.J., 2006 (April 8), Diver at the Poor Knights. All rights reserved.

Photo Credit: Bellamy, G.D.J., 2006 (April 8), A juvenile long-tailed stingray. All rights reserved.

Mystery goes unsolved

My rebreather was assembled and made ready with fresh batteries, a freshly packed scrubber, and the cylinders nicely topped up with their respective breathing gases. The planned decompression dive was to be at Saddleback Island (Motumahanga) in the Sugar Loaf Islands Marine Protected Area (SLIMPA). Our mission: Dive to photograph and identify a mystery fish that didn’t appear in any of the New Zealand fish identification books and publications.

Award winning underwater photographer Ian Swan, my wife Irene, and myself, arrived at Saddleback Island around mid-morning in Ian’s boat ‘Nitrox’. There was a 1.5m south-westerly ground swell surging into the island that was turning the water white where it crashed into the rocky outcrops. New Zealand fur seals were everywhere casually playing about in the rushing water (they weren’t so casual a couple of months ago when our “Taranaki Terror”, a 6m great white shark, was feeding on them!)

We spent almost 10 minutes circling about searching for a sheltered place to anchor the boat and commence the dive, but it was not looking good at all. The passing swell had picked up all the loose sediment from the bottom and reduced the visibility to virtually zero, so with no visibility and nowhere suitable to anchor the boat we “canned” the dive.

So the mystery fish remains unidentified for now, but we’ll be back! :o)

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Photo Credit: Young, D.C., 2005 (August 7), Sugar Loaf Islands (Nga Motu). All rights reserved.

Photo Credit: Young, D.C., 2006 (April 15), New Zealand fur seal in the Nga Motu Marine Park. All rights reserved.

Poor Knights and the samba band

DAY 1 - Saturday

The Poor Knights Marine Reserve was the venue for this weekend's diving. I arrived at the Tutukaka marina at 5:30am and grabbed a quick sleep amongst all the dive gear in the back of my station wagon. "Uncomfortable" would have been quite an understatement.

The weather forecast for the weekend was not looking good, but in reality only a slight wind was blowing and the ground swell was relatively manageable on the Saturday. Noel Ericsson, our skipper, guided the Yukon Charters boat 'Arrow' over the bumpy twelve nautical miles of ocean to the Poor Knights southern lying Aorangi Island. My dive buddy for the day was Gareth Bellamy, who was diving his home-built manual closed circuit rebreather.

Our first dive was at a site simply known as "The Rock" off Archway Island. This huge pinnacle-like lump of rhyolite dropped from 6m to 48m on its southern flank, and was covered in sponges and soft corals. Every nook and cranny was filled with nearly every species of triplefin and blenny. Small grey moray eels were spread about everywhere on the walls, some crammed into very tight holes. I even found one jammed into a hole lying upside down and looking ready to pounce on some small unsuspecting reef dweller. I thought it best not to wiggle my gloveless finger in front of it because I’ve seen the lightning fast strikes these guys can make.

The fish life near and on the walls consisted of very territorial black angelfish, shoals of adult and juvenile two-spot demoiselle, blue maomao, pink maomao, red pigfish, kingfish, and a solitary juvenile long tailed stingray. A clown toado (also known as a sharp-nosed puffer) swam about conducting its daily business of nibbling at sponges, bryozoans, and ascidians.

Gareth and myself swam in a counter-clockwise direction around "The Rock", slowly ascending from the depths to the sun-lit summit where our dive boat was stationed. After completing the last of our required decompression, we surfaced and joined the rest of crew onboard 'Arrow' after 75 minutes in the 21C water.

Noel took ‘Arrow’ around to Rikoriko Cave where a samba band had planned to hold a concert on a boat (the sea cave is huge and has superb acoustics, some big bands have played concerts and recorded in there!), but the swell was a bit ugly looking. We ended up catching up with the band in Eastern Arch (also known as The Tunnel) in Arorangaia Island. The acoustics were really good and the band played some great Afro-Brazilian rhythms (when the big drums played and reverberated through the archway, they were out of this world). This was all part of the 25th anniversary of the creation of the Poor Knights Marine Reserve and the Oceanz Awards dinner being held in Tutukaka later that evening.

Our surface interval seemed to pass quickly, and in no time at all we were geared up and were ready to drop down on the second dive site called “Fraggle Rock” which was only a short distance from previous dive site.

The water was crystal clear giving the impression that when jumping off the boat you were going to hit the rocky slopes below, but upon entering we found that there was at least 8m between the rock and the surface. At first glace, the top of the slope looked almost barren but on closer inspection it was buzzing with activity from all the crested blennies and triplefins living in a garden of small bryozoans. We headed down to the white sandy beach that lay in 42m at the foot of the slope. Grey moray eels occupied ledges on the wall and the red spiny lobsters noisily announced their presence from the back of larger holes with cracking sounds.

Heading along the submerged beach with the wall on our right, we soon discovered a swim-through in the lava rock and stole the opportunity to explore it further. Gareth led the way and we quickly found ourselves at the end of a short lava tube section. This lay at the bottom of a crack in the slope that ran all the way from the surface. This was an awesome place to be and I let out expressions of appreciation (the diving of rebreathers allows divers to talk to each other) which Gareth quickly acknowledged.

The wall ended abruptly with a sudden right-angled turn to the right, which we followed for about 20m as it took us into shallower waters. At this point we turned the dive and ascended slowly whilst traversing the wall back to the boat. Shoaling kingfish joined us while we decompressed. Some were even swimming within inches of me which is very rare for these majestic game fish (again, yet another benefit of diving a rebreather… no bubbles to scare away creatures).

Decompression completed and back onboard ‘Arrow’, Noel headed back to Tutukaka. The crossing passed very quickly for me because I fell asleep, no doubt complete with loads of dribble pouring from my mouth and loud snorting sounds emanating from my airways.


DAY 2 - Sunday

The day kicked off for me at first light. I filled my scrubber canister with a fresh load of sorb (carbon dioxide absorbent), then assembled and calibrated my Inspo’ rebreather ready for the dives.

Rebreather divers Pete Mesley and Simon Mitchell were in Tutukaka for the Oceanz Award dinner from the previous evening and joined us on ‘Arrow’. Gareth decided that he didn’t want to dive so under the supervision of Noel, skippered the boat over to the Poor Knights. The weather was very similar to Saturday’s, with a North-westerly blowing and a messy swell brewing up. This meant that it would only be dive sites on the Southern aspects of the Poor Knights islands that would be dive-able.

We settled on the outside wall of Shaft Cave on Arorangaia Island as the first dive for the day. The entrance to Shaft Cave went from just above the surface of the sea down to a depth of 50m, with a further drop off to 87m below that. I was going to dive with Simon and pose for photographs with the sponges at the deeper depths.

The water was 21C and the visibility was easily 20m. The descent went without a hitch, briefly pausing at 25m just as a check to see that everything was functioning properly, and then on to 45m where Simon left his camera on ledge before we descended further. Following the wall down to a large ledge at 61m, I stopped and watched Simon go to around the 80m mark. A seriously cold thermocline (an often visible and abrupt temperature change in the water) occurred at this depth, so after a few minutes of looking about I ascended back to the ledge where the camera was stored, whilst still watching Simon ascending below me.

Once the camera was made ready with the strobes pulled out on their spindly stalks, we set off along the wall amongst the finger sponges. At this depth they start to increase in size considerably to the ones found in shallower waters. Photos were staged and posed for. Shoaling two-spot demoiselles were keen to get in on the photo shoot and swam about me as I gazed at sponges with my HID torch highlighting the beautiful colours and finer structures.

Using the wall as a guide we slowly ascended, incorporating our decompression stops into the slow traverse of the underwater cliff. My decompression obligation was about 20 minutes shorter than Simon’s. During the shallow stops, we found a surge free zone with overhangs that contained some very diverse ecosystems. To my dismay I came across a lot of intact but dead crabs lying about the ledges. One crab was like no other I’d ever seen before. I just hope that a virus or a toxin is not responsible for causing some of the population to expire.

We surfaced from the last stop at just under two hours from entering in the water, and swam out from the island to get picked up by the boat. This was a really enjoyable dive.

For our surface interval, we stopped off in Southern Harbour and watched the divers coming and going from all the other charter boats. The sea looked quite nasty out beyond the protection of the natural harbour, but was relatively flat within.

The next dive was at “The Rock” again, but this time it was going to be a shallow no-decompression dive. Simon waited for me as I joined him near the top of the lava knoll. Almost immediately, we were joined by a long-finned boarfish who refused to stay in one place long enough to have its photo taken. I swam away from the boarfish, but it seemed to think I was rejecting it so it made a point of swimming right up next to me while I looked out for nudibranchs and banded coral shrimps. Eventually I gave it the slip and found Simon taking photos around the corner. Huge snapper circled above us.

The water was thick with noisy open-circuit underwater photographers, so I headed for the highest point of The Rock and observed a nudibranch laying its spiral egg case. Crested blennies were everywhere and popped their inquisitive looking faces out of the holes in the rhyolite rock. Definitely the place to get a good photo of one. Simon finished taking photographs so he signalled that he was ready to surface and we were back on the boat within a few minutes.

Noel took the boat back to Tutukaka, but before we set off I cleared a space on one of the forward bunks and grabbed the chance of a sleep before my 7 hour drive back to New Plymouth in Taranaki.

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I noticed during my last dive on the Sunday that my rebreather controllers were showing that cell 3 was giving a reading about 0.1bar above the other two cells. This is usually due to moisture on the cell face. I currently have the rebreather electronics hanging up and drying out, but I’ll keep an eye on it and perform a linearity check before the next dives.

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Photo Credit: Young, D.C., 2004 (September 19), Tutukaka marina at first light. All rights reserved.

Photo Credit: Young, D.C., 2004 (September 18), Eastern Archway (The Tunnel) as seen from Southern Harbour. All rights reserved.

Photo Credit: Young, D.C., 2004 (September 18), Simon Mitchell's Mk15.5 rebreather. All rights reserved.

Post cyclone diving

Cyclone Wati threw up a monstrous swell off the West coast of New Zealand at the start of the week and reduced the visibility to zero far out into the ocean. It's a very depressing thing when you can't see the blue line from the shore (saying that, the surf was really up and gave some very solid 3-4m waves to play on).

With the ground swell back to a gentle and occasional pulse it was time to find some cleaner water for a dive. We left Port Taranaki at 8:30am today in the boat "Nitrox" and headed up the coast doing a little fishing en-route. Finally we settled on a spot that we'd dived just the week before but had to abandon due to the cyclone abruptly kicking up adverse conditions.


I kitted up in my dive gear and jumped into the 17C water, did a quick bounce dive to check to see if the site was going to be dive-able and then surfaced to pass on the news that the visibility on the bottom was a variable 3m.

In no time at all I was joined by Ian Swan and Julie Barr, and we set off to explore the reef together. Quickly we found that the visibility was dropping so we all turned about and headed out into deeper water where the better visibility was. Ian and Julie spotted a few crayfish under the lava rock shelves of the reef and began to collect a couple for the dinner table. As agreed earlier, I broke off from them and went exploring some new ground in slightly deeper water. To my delight I found a deep channel with a sandy bottom where the visibility was a good 7-8m in places. Swimming slowly along the channel I came across a large short-tailed stingray lying motionless on the sandy bottom, so without disturbing the sleeping beast, I swam over it and continued down the channel. Deep undercuts lined the walls of the channel system and were peppered with nests of nervous crayfish and swarming shoals of sweep. Small caves, swim-throughs, and archways covered in large orange sponges came and went as I cruised by. By all appearances, the recent storm had not dislodged any of the delicate looking finger sponges and it was business as usual for the fish and other local residents.

Knowing that it was time to head back to the boat I ascended to the top of the channel and crossed over the top of the reef and started back towards the boat. I crossed over lots of deep cuts in the reef until eventually I was back under the boat. I surfaced and was met with a cheery smile from my wife, Irene, who was boatman while we were all diving. A few minutes later, Ian and Julie surfaced and returned to the boat. As we changed out of our dive gear, Irene told us about a possible whale sighting she had while we were in the water.

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Photo Credit: Young, I.M., 2006 (April 1), Mt. Taranaki from Motunui dive site. All rights reserved.

Competition photo

Today I received my copy of the Dive New Zealand magazine only to discover that my good mate Ian Swan had entered and won 1st prize in the magazine's "Kodak Shades of Colour" photographic competition in the underwater digital photo section. The winning image was of the mosaic moray I featured in my blog "Deep blue". Good one Ian.

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Photo Credit: Swan, I, 2006 (January 21), Mosaic moray at Middle Arch. All rights reserved.

Good vibrations

I haven't managed to get as much diving as I'd liked to do this summer, but the dives I have been on were certainly memorable. The underwater scooter has been really useful and allowed me to explore vast areas of reef around the Taranaki coast.

There is a common belief that the noise of a scooter drives fish and other marine animals away from the diver, but to the contrary I've found it to be the complete opposite. While I was scootering over a magnificent reef in South Taranaki, I flew over a group of large boulders and at first appearance there was no life around them. Just the unusual shapes of the boulders got my attention, so I started to do tight circles and figures of eights over them as I studied the formations. Within no time at all I started to spot movement from under the boulders. A moving mass of large crayfish (red spiny lobsters) started to crawl out of their hiding holes. Reef dwelling fish like red moki, mao mao, and various wrasse also just appeared as if from nowhere. Wow! I even had a couple of fly-bys from some stingrays.

I'm not sure if the marine creatures were just being incredibly inquisitive about the noise and vibrations from the scooter, but it does go a long way to dispelling the myth of scootering about and never getting to see the sea life.

Deep blue

A wee while ago I headed North for three days and drove the 500km (310miles) to the small East coast village of Tutukaka for some diving out at the Poor Knights Islands.

On the way up, Ian Swan, his trusty camera, and myself, all jumped into the warm clear water at Goat Island Marine Reserve, near Leigh. Here we were molested by the gigantic shoaling snapper, mao mao, and kelp fish. We even saw a mermaid! (Ian has the photographic evidence... okay, it was actually a young lady in a skimpy bikini that had swum out to Goat Island from the mainland and passed over us while we were milling about in the shallows. A very memorable sight.)

Our dives in the Poor Knights were awesome as usual. First port of call was a dive off the back of Landing Bay Pinnacle to 60m. The visibility was amazing down there, we looked out over the downward sloping white sands that dropped off to beyond our gaze and into the ever deepening blueness of the water. As we ascended spiralling up the pinnacle to our designated decompression stops, the visibility dropped to about 20m but this was easily forgotten about as we watched vast swathes of fish moving about following the tidal driven plankton masses.


The second dive of the day was at Middle Arch. On the bottom of the lava slope at 30m in some broken reef, a mosaic moray lay still apart from the gentle bobbing of its head. It watched patiently as Ian approached. Once Ian was within a few centimetres of moray’s gaping mouth, it obliged with graceful posturing as the camera snapped pictures of the transparent but deadly sharp teeth that mosaic morays' have. Once the photo shoot finished, Ian and myself found ourselves heading up the slope and into the archway. Here we had the honour of being joined by a large sunfish (mola mola), but as usual I was not paying any attention so was not until I got back to the boat I first heard about it (I was the only person not to see the beast and I had to endure a ribbing from our skipper, Noel, about not being very observant!) I did however manage to have a couple of juvenile eagle rays to do a fly past right next to my head, but Ian just missed catching a photo of it.

The next day, we stopped off at Landing Bay Pinnacle again and planned a dive into the Taravana Cave system that went deep into the interior of Tawhiti Rahi Island (Taravana I'm told means crazy). The swim to the entrance took us down the western flank of the pinnacle and then over to the mouth of the cave which bottoms out at 36m. Ian was on open circuit (OC) and had twinned cylinders, but it was very critical that we stayed within the gas supplies available to us for the duration of the dive and decompression (plus reserves). As per the plan, we headed deep into the blackness of the cave. Our lights highlighted the abundant life on the cave walls and the gorgonian fans on the ceiling. The 250m penetration to the back of the cave went very quickly. Here Ian took photos as I posed with a small statue for the camera. We made our way back to a point where a narrower passageway breaks from the main cave and we followed it to the second of the Taravana Cave's entrances. The blue light was flooding in the entrance and in no time we were doing decompression stops on the colourful walls above the main entrance. Ian seized the opportunity to capture some more pictures while we hung around on deco.


To finish off the day's diving, Noel took us to Cleanerfish Bay. There was everything from stingrays to large crayfish hidden in the kelp covered boulders that went to 23m. I got to hold Ian’s new HID dive light while he took pictures of a Gem Nudibranch that was happy to pose for him.

The only bummer of the trip were the bloody mosquitoes that effected a perfectly executed midnight break-in into our accommodation and devoured copious quantities of our blood while we tried to sleep... “buzzzzz!”

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I regularly dive with Yukon Charters who operate their boat "Arrow" out of Tutukaka. Charter operators Noel Erickson and Jo Thompson know where the best diving is to be found around the Poor Knights Marine Reserve. They are always very happy to have technical and rebreather divers (even putting up with me taking large areas of floor space with my SS UV-18 underwater scooter). Check out their website here: http://www.yukon.co.nz

Don't forget to ask to see Noel's underwater pictures, they're well worth a look.

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Photo Credit: Swan, I, 2006 (January 22), Sea anenome at Taravana Cave. All rights reserved.

Photo Credit: Swan, I, 2006 (January 21), Mosaic moray at Middle Arch. All rights reserved.

Photo Credit: Swan, I, 2006 (January 22), Statue at the back of Taravana Cave. All rights reserved.

Rust on the beaches

Just off my favourite local surf spot at Weld Road lies the scattered rusting hulk of the shipwrecked steamer 'Gairloch'. When the tide is low you can walk out to the bow section and examine the crafted mass of rusting steel. Having foundered on the reef over 100 years ago (January 5th, 1903), the Gairloch has become a protected historic wreck under New Zealand law.


On a spring tide you can get access to the ships boiler and starboard bulkheads which lie further out on the reef, and with the use of a snorkel and fins you can see the inside of the boiler from a rusted hole in the bottom where it is still attached to the ships superstructure.

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For more information on the loss of the Gairloch, read David Bruce's informative article "The Gairloch: Ship's loss a families gain" on the Puke Ariki website: http://www.pukeariki.com/en/stories/disasters/gairloch.asp

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Photo Credit: Young, D.C., 2006 (January 29), Bow of the Gairloch. All rights reserved.

Photo Credit: Young, I.M., 2006 (January 29), Gairloch's boiler. All rights reserved.

Day and night diving

Yesterday I headed up the North Taranaki coast to dive the site of one of the newest marine reserves in New Zealand, the Parininihi Marine Reserve (an area known locally as the White Cliffs). It was a shore dive with Ian Swan that started out as a phone call in the early afternoon to discuss the weather and general sea conditions around the Taranaki coast. As always, I was keen for an opportunity to get wet so I quickly snapped up the chance of diving up at the White Cliffs.

Ian took his quad-bike to transport both us and our dive gear up the black iron sand beach. The wind had dropped back to a gentle breeze and the surface of the sea started to look quite settled with only a slight swell throwing up small breaking waves on the shore. The quad was parked up in the hard sand directly below the cliffs and we pulled on our dive gear. I entered the surf with fins in one hand and the underwater scooter in the other. Waves broke over the top of us as we pushed our way through the maze of rounded boulders until we were deep enough to pull on our fins comfortably. Once we were ready, Ian took command of the scooter and drove out of the white water with me holding onto his fins... what a buzz! :o)

Unfortunately, we soon discovered that the visibility was going to be a problem as it dropped quite markedly as we got deeper. This was indeed quite cruel as the surface water was looking very clear. The occasional fish swam past but it was seen only as a dark blur, so I called to end the dive. Normally this area is blessed with abundant fish life, soft corals and exotic sponges, but there was no way we were going to get to experience them on this dive.


In no time at all we were body surfing back to the beach on the waves. I was given a quick reminder that boulders lay just beneath the surface as I crashed off a few on my less than elegant attempt to get to my feet at the waters edge, even Ian was completely inverted at one point trying to protect the scooter from crashing off any rocks during his exit.

Not beaten, I suggested a night dive in New Plymouth. After dark at 9:30pm, Ian and I jumped into Port Taranaki. The water was a bit on the murky side due to the dredging operation to deepen the main shipping channel into and around the port, but we soon found the clear water lying outside the port. Our torches lit the water up exposing all the nocturnal marine species, with eels skimming just off the surface of the sand and crayfish wandering about over the boulders. The daytime fish just carried on sleeping in the natural shelves created by the many boulders, seemingly oblivious to our presence.

I had agreed with Ian that we were to stay within very close proximity of each other throughout the dive. This was to ensure that neither of us had any entanglement problems on all the fishing line that had been lost by eager fishermen. Because of this close style of diving it’s not unknown to occasionally bump into your buddy. About 30 minutes into our dive, I was aware of Ian being slightly above me and to my right. Whilst I was finning gently forward with my torch held out in my right hand, I felt a downward pressure being exerted on my head and right hand. Automatically I thought that it was my dive buddy passing over me, so I pressed the back of my hand upward to ward him off and position him away from my mask which was being dragged off my face. But then I felt a sweeping motion against my arm and face… almost like a ripple of downward force. To my surprise the light of my torch lit up a white rippling surface just as I realised it was a huge stingray swimming over my back and pushing me downwards with it! Not wanting to get at the wrong end of the stinger in its tail, I turned to my left quickly whilst holding the ray at bay with the back of my right hand. It’s tail slowly passed by me (the stingray held its tail in a relaxed and lowered position) and I immediately recognised the beast. This was a short-tailed stingray that I’ve swum with for the last few years on both day and night dives around this area. What a rush!!!

After following the ray to the sandy seabed, I returned to Ian and tried to explain using wild gestures what had just happened to me, but I could see from his expression that he thought I had gone mad so I left it to the end of the dive to ask if he saw all the excitement… but unfortunately (or maybe even fortunately) he had missed seeing the ray trying to get up close and personal with me.

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The stingray (scientific name: Dasyatis Brevicaudata) that brushed up against me is no stranger to investigating night divers. A few years back whilst out with some students, it swam in from behind and using its immense size pushed us all aside only to rest immediately in front of us on the seabed. It is more than happy to be stroked on its wings and underside when you lie beside it. Sometimes it swims in front of you and expects you to follow it about, even slowing down to allow you to keep up with it.

A couple of pods of orca (killer whales) had moved north along the Taranaki coast merrily munching on the eagle rays and stingrays in the last few weeks, so it’s good to know that this local resident had survived another raid.

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For some interesting New Zealand ray photos try the Seafriends web site at: http://www.seafriends.org.nz/images/rays.htm

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Photo Credit: Young, D.C., 2002 (April 30), White Cliffs looking South. All rights reserved.

Photo Credit: Young, D.C., 2006 (January 03), White Cliffs looking North. All rights reserved.

Lava tunnels and caves

Sunday was a looking to be an awful day weather-wise with strong winds and an increasing swell forecast, but at 8am the sea actually looked okay enough to take ‘Nitrox’ (Ian Swan’s excellent dive boat) out for a spin. Onboard was Irene (my gorgeous wife), Ian Swan (Nitrox's skipper), Shaun Rohloff (an all-round good bloke), and myself.

We headed out of Port Taranaki to Saddleback Island at the back of the Nga Motu Marine Park. Ian and Shaun jumped into the water for a dive on a kelp covered boulder slope going to a maximum depth of 27m. The water was 16C and the visibility was a bit poor giving only 4m on the bottom, but despite this both divers remained in the water for almost an hour in their wetsuits. Ian, being a shrewd hunter located a good sized crayfish (red spiny rock lobster) and returned it to the boat at the end of the dive.

The next dive was down the coast on some new ground that we’d never dived before. Using the bottom sounder we located some interesting formations in 20-23m of water. Showing up as 5m drops with undercuts, the ground looked promising. With Nitrox at anchor, I jumped into the water and followed a shot line to the bottom. Initially, the ground looked almost average with 1-2m high lava ledges with a black sand bottom. The fish life was not very exciting either, with only the occasional wrasse coming over to me for a look. I started to swim out from the shot line when out of the 3m vis. water dark shapes stared to appear around me. I headed over to one such dark mass to discover a 4m high lava outcrop which was undercut creating a huge overhang that could be swum down. On the roof were pockets or holes full of crayfish of all sizes. I continued to swim down the undercut until I popped out at the end. Then in front of me was a large tunnel through a lava mass, so I swam down its length to the light at the back. Juvenile crayfish lined the roof and walls, larger ones were walking about on the floor totally ignoring me… this was amazing to see!!! I swam through mini archways, into little caves, and over the top of the lava structures themselves. The area it covered was huge. Delicate sponges, oblique-swimming triplefins and shoaling maomao, and even a john dory swam around with me.

Obviously this was a very important area in terms of restocking Taranaki's crayfish population. The one disappointing thing I did see was the remains of a commercial crayfish pot lying broken up in one of the cuts in the main lava formation. One can only hope that this gem of a dive site is not abused and lost to the generations of new divers that have yet to discover it.

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Whilst preparing for a deep dive with Ian Swan earlier last week, I turned up with all my gear ready to dive. After calibrating the rebreather, pulling on my drysuit, and then preparing for the pre-breathe at the dive site, I went for my fins only to discover that I'd managed to leave them at home! The moral: Prior Planning and Preparation Prevents a Piss Poor Performance. Sorry for muffing up our deep dive Ian. :o(

Seahorses

Here is a picture of a not so typical seahorse that I found today in only 3m of water on a dive with Julie Barr and Ian Swan in Port Taranaki. This particular seahorse had five spikes on top of its head whereas it is more usual to see seahorses in Taranaki without any spikes at all. The overall length was about 20cm long and it performed a few subtle colour changes as it posed for photos. Ian took the photo with his Olympus 5050 digital camera and underwater housing.

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Click on the seahorse photo to see a clearer version of the image.

Photo Credit: Swan, I., 2005 (November 26), Seahorse. All rights reserved.

Nudibranch and octopus

The title sounds a bit like a recipe for a none too appetising seafood platter but it actually best describes my dive off the Tutukaka coast at the weekend.

I was attending a farewell gathering held in Tutukaka for Phil Bendle and his amazing wife Faye before they returned to Taranaki to enjoy their retirement. Prior to his retirement two years ago, Phil had been the skipper of the outstanding charter boat ‘Norseman’ for two decades, taking underwater photographers and divers to the world famous ‘Poor Knights Marine Reserve’. Just from seeing those who attended, it was very apparent to see how much Phil and the Norseman contributed to the development of diving in New Zealand.

My dive started with a drive around the local coastline. There was not even a hint of swell on the ocean, so my surfboard stayed stowed in its bag (every time I take the surfboard the sea is flat, but when I don’t take the surfboard the surf breaks are absolutely pumping… go figure!). Luckily I'd packed my dive gear in addition to the surfing gear, so I eventually settled on a dive site near the mouth of the Tutukaka Harbour. Having scrambled down to the rocky beach in my dive gear, I eagerly entered the water. At 20C the east coast water was considerably warmer than in Taranaki, and the visibility was verging on 20m.

About 30 minutes into my dive, I pulled myself through a tight swim-through in the lava rock formations making up the fish infested reef and something caught my attention. It was a sharp bright green colour on a slightly darker patch of green algae. The contrast was only really possible because of the clear water and having the midday sun directly overhead, but it certainly stood out even to me and I’m colour blind! Upon closer inspection, I saw what looked like a green butterfly with vibrant little blue spots dashed about it’s “wings” and body. The head had the most beautiful graduated blue coloured rhinophore (stalk like organs used to smell odours in the water). I got the surprise of my life when I put my gloved finger next to it to get a sense of its size… it was tiny compared to my finger’s width weighing in at about 16mm in length. This was a perfect illustration of how objects appear 25% larger in water than on the surface. I stayed watching the rarely seen nudibranch (later identified as Elysia Sp. 4) for over 10 minutes as it grazed away on the algae. I finally said my goodbyes and left it merrily chomping away.


I had only moved about 1m away from the nudibranch when I looked up into the piercing gaze of an octopus’s eye. A rush of excitement gripped me and I soon manoeuvred myself to within 80cm of its head. The tentacles were all rolled up in the small hole it was hiding in except for one. This tentacle, I presumed, was the one it was using to catch anything that walked/swam close enough to be grabbed and digested. The octopus had matched the surrounding rocks, sponges, and seaweeds with its perfect camouflage colouration, but it also remarkably pulled its flesh to form little spikes to better match the texture of the background reef. It took ages before the octopus accepted that I was no threat to it and slowly rolled out its free tentacle towards me. Just before the tentacle touched my dive suit the octopus started to pulse the colour pigments in its eye in a rapid rolling black to light grey pattern and then it stopped short of touching me, gently retracting the tentacle. I took this to mean it might have been a bit stressed by my presence so I backed off and gave it some space.

Finding lots of swim-throughs and dark undercuts in the reef, I played about with the smaller fish that were taking refuge in there. Shoals of juvenile fish like bigeye and two spot demoiselles peered out from the sanctuary of their hiding places. It was not long before I discovered another much bigger octopus. In no time at all, it was time to be returning to shore and I took a bearing for the beach. Swimming around the large pinnacles and lava rock outcrops, I snaked my way back at full steam. Taking a break from the swimming in 6m of water I stopped, but something took my attention from the corner of my eye. Looking right, I saw the familiar shape of an octopus, but this was no ordinary octopus because it was bloody huge in size and was spanning the entrance to a cave with it tentacles fully stretched out effectively blocking the entrance. I could hear rock lobsters cracking away from within and it looked like they were about to become dinner for the octopus!

The dive was soon over as I approached the abruptly sloping beach. Suddenly I saw a panicked motion in front of me. I had no idea what it was that was trashing about in the shallows trying to escape the water so I surfaced the last metre popping my head out of the water to hear screams of terror! Through my mask I could make out a family with young children retreating quickly up the beach. Apparently my sudden unidentified appearance in the water had startled the children who were paddling at the waters edge and they had bolted for the safety of dry land! :o)

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When I went looking to identify the nudibranch on my dive, I stumbled across the Sea Slug Forum. This site is well worth a visit and lists many species found all over the world.

Photo Credit: Young, I.M., 2005 (November 20) Tutukaka coast beach. All rights reserved.

Photo Credit: Rudman, W.B., 1999 (July 20) Elysia sp. 4. [In] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/factsheet.cfm?base=elyssp4

The Rusty Ruskie

The opportunity to dive the wreck of the Russian cruise liner “Mikhail Lermontov” came up, so I jumped at the chance of some more hours exploring her dark and silt covered decks. Setting off from my home on the Thursday, I caught the ‘Interislander’ vehicle ferry “Arahura” in Wellington to set sail on the three hour crossing to Picton in the Marlborough Sounds, South Island.

My station wagon car was loaded to the gunnels with dive gear. I had my AP Inspiration rebreather, Silent Submersion underwater scooter, various cylinders, and a set of open circuit dive gear, just to name a few of the things taken. After spending a few hours in Picton sightseeing, I met up with our 60ft charter boat “Affinity” which was berthed next to the ferry terminal and proceeded to load my gear aboard. When all the divers and crew were aboard, we set off down the picturesque Queen Charlotte Sound to moor for the night at Ship Cove (so named because Captain James Cook used the site as an anchorage during various expeditions whilst exploring and mapping the New Zealand coast line). That night I took the time to sit outside and reflect on the good times I‘d had with my dearly missed dive buddy Nigel Lees as Affinity swung gently on her anchor in the slight breeze. The water was still and stars twinkled brightly in their reflections off the water’s surface.

At sparrows fart (or first light to the uninitiated), our skipper Brian pulled the anchor and we headed to Cape Jackson where almost 20 years earlier the Mikhail Lermontov collided with a reef that resulted in her sinking. On the mid tide, Brian took Affinity over the actual bit of reef that the Lermontov hit showing up at 6m to the top using the depth sounder. About an hour later we were in Port Gore, the final resting place of the “Rusty Ruskie”. The wind had got up and was howling off the steep flanking slopes of the natural harbour, but we managed to secure the mooring over the wreck.

Divers spent the next three days acquainting themselves with the 578ft long ship, exploring areas such as the swimming pool, gymnasium, and medical quarterdecks, the bow with it’s cargo hatch, the bridge, and even the chain locker. The Rusty Ruskie lies on her starboard side in 37m of water and this can prove a real challenge to get your head around when moving through the internal decks of the ship.

I dived with Pete Mesley and we had both dived the Rusty Ruskie together before, so we visited a few areas within the ship that we were very familiar with and found a few new spots too. The first thing we noticed was that the marine life had significantly increased around the ship. I even heard red spiny lobsters cracking away from within the interior.

In no time at all, everyone had logged up a many hours on the Lermontov and it was time to head back to Picton to catch the ferry back to Wellington. This had been a great trip for all.

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For some the best information on the Mikhail Lermontov, I recommend that you go to Kevin Dekker’s website “Vodka on the rocks”.

Advanced wreck course

My weekend consisted of swimming around a rusting ship sitting in 32m of water off the Tutukaka coast. I was diving the HMNZS Waikato as part of an advanced wreck diving course run by Pete Mesley (instructor and all-round good guy ). The rebreathers were fitted with side-mounted tanks and long hosed regulators for open circuit bailout. In addition to this redundant air system, we carried extra lights, reels and cutting tools.

The first dive was spent adjusting to the new configuration of gear. I usually carry my redundant bailout slung from my harness, so having it on the rebreather case was interesting due to the extra width on my back. This became all the more apparent when squeezing through narrow spaces only to be abruptly halted as the unit hung-up on things. Gentle backing up freed me and allowed second attempts on passing the obstruction. The laying and tying off of line was also a skill we practiced throughout the dive in addition to anti-silting finning techniques. Christian Blaschke, my course dive buddy, had to put up with the occasional fin in the face as I laid line around the helicopter hanger of the ship. Oops!

The surface interval passed quickly and we got straight into skills on the second dive. Pete got Christian and myself to lay line and then swim back in silt-out conditions (lights switched off and eyes closed to simulate the silt-out). This was real test of communication, but being on rebreathers, Christian and myself could actually talk to each other throughout the task whilst supplementing the communication with line tug combinations and body squeezes. Surge through the hanger made it particularly exciting when passing corridor hatchways, usually with the result of being sucked out of the hanger bay and spat back into your buddy seconds later!

The next day started with a bumpy boat ride out to the wreck site. Christian decided to "can" the diving for the day (he was looking very ill) and chose not to do the dive. Pete became my dive buddy and we made our way down to the wreck. After spending a period of time laying line and doing silt-outs procedures, we set off to explore more of the wreck. Pete asked me to lead, and while I was tying off the line in an access to the engine room the surge really got up so Pete called the penetration. Just as I untied the second to last tie-off, a huge surge rushed through the access and spat me out of the guts of the ship (most kewl!!!). Pete joined me as I reeled in the last of the line, then we ventured off and did a turn about at open circuit bailout on the long hoses.

The small boat that took us out to the dive site was jumping about in an increasing swell, so we quickly cut a course back to Tutukaka harbour. I found a few guys sitting up front and they all appeared to be suffering the early effects of sea sickness. In no time at all I was telling them my favourite story about someone being sick after eating spaghetti and how a long string of it came out of their nose. Sure enough, the guys on the boat turned a strange shade of green and looked very uneasy… my work was done.

The last dive of the course was planned and a penetration from the stern of the ship to the engine room was conducted. Line was laid, tie-offs selected and fastened, unique features memorised, and Pete finally turned the dive with a simulated silt-out. Lights switched off and eyes closed, Pete communicated with me constantly alerting me to his whereabouts and well-being as I reeled back through the ships interior. Yay! Upon completing the task, we went for a tour of the ships bow and guns that now lie torn and separated from the ships main superstructure.

This was amongst one of the best diving courses I’ve done to-date.

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Pete Mesley runs Dive T.E.C and Fourth Element NZ from Auckland, New Zealand.

Two weeks on

Just over two weeks have passed since Nigel Lees, my dive buddy and mate, lost his life in a diving accident. I can’t comment in any detail about the specifics of the accident until the coroners inquest has run its due course.

I have had one dive since then and it was the day before Nigel’s funeral. I knew that I had to get back on the proverbial horse, so I headed down the coast to Opunaki for a solo shore dive. Pulling on my dive gear, I scrambled down to the water over the large rocks making up the wave swept shoreline. The only sound was the resonate boom of the waves breaking about me, and the smell of the sea was strong in my nose.

Once in the water, my attention changed focus and I became aware of how uncomfortable I felt being in the sea. The images of Nigel’s accident pulsed through my head. This lasted for a while, until abruptly, I realised that I was looking at the wing an eagle ray just inches from mask. I let out a very startled yelp, and drastically changed my course whilst glancing over at the rays tail. Clearly both of us got a fright from our chance encounter as we hastily swam off in opposite directions to each other. What a rush! It was exactly the tonic I needed, because from that moment on I became aware of the reason why diving is such a privileged experience. The next hour and half in the water was a pure joy.

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Nigel arrived for his funeral service on the back of his boat “Sticky Bun”. A salute from many divers from all over New Zealand was given. They formed a corridor of raised fins as we carried Nigel’s casket into the memorial hall. Over a thousand people attended the service, and as tributes were given from family and friends, everybody attending learned something new about Nigel’s amazing life.

One old lady sent Bronwyn and the family a card that read: “Forgive me for saying this God, but I think you stuffed up this time!”

Bugger!

This is going to be a short post just to say that my good mate and dive buddy, Nigel Lees JP, passed away last week whilst doing something he loved... diving. As Nigel would say: "Bugger!".

Rest in peace mate.

Diving, diving, and even more diving

Wow, it's been a hectic month with all the diving I've been doing since my last post - "Cabin fever".

The Great Barrier Island dive trip was fantastic. The rugged native bush covered island is located north of the Coromandel Peninsula in the Hauraki Gulf, and is probably one the best kept secrets in New Zealand with it’s beaches and hidden bays. The water temp was 15C and the visibility varied from a few metres to about 25m, depending on the dive site.

A dive I did on the trip was to Channel Rock, between the Great Barrier Island and the Coromandel Peninsula. This pinnacle of rock sits in the middle of nowhere and experiences strong tidal currents, as I found out whilst struggling to push up into shallower water from 50m and up. My dive buddy, Gary Palmer, was diving his twinset on air (he couldn't find a gas blender to make up a mix in time for the trip) and racked up about 40mins more deco than myself on the rebreather. A very enjoyable dive despite my leaking drysuit.

One of the next dive trips was to Tutukaka, a gateway to the diving paradise of the Poor Knights. Jacques Cousteau rated the Poor Knights as one of his top ten dive sites in the world, and I can fully understand why. The New Zealand government made it into a Marine Reserve in 1981, and as a result, the marine life has become without exception both diverse and abundant. The Eastern Australian Current (the same one mentioned in the kids movie ‘Nemo’) flows past the islands bringing in turtles, whales, and more recently, manta rays.

I did two days of diving in the Poor Knights and the rebreather worked well. On one of the dives, we discovered a large eagle ray lying on a white sand shelf at 20m. When I lay down beside it and stroked its wing, the ray looked at me with it’s large eye and continued to gently breathe the water surrounding us. This is why I personally love the Poor Knights, you always have the opportunity to get really close to the marine life as nothing appears to be bothered by the presence of divers (either on closed circuit or on open circuit).

The majority of my other dives have been off the Taranaki coast. The warmer than usual water has meant that lots of species of fish have remained for the winter season. Even our resident great whites are nearer to shore than usual, with one getting snagged up in a commercial fishing boats nets. Sadly, it died before it was able to be set free. We even had a leopard seal come ashore for a photo opportunity with the local newspaper.

But by far the best thing I saw in the last week or so was a Southern Wright whale and her newly born calf playing only 150m offshore in 20m of water. This was in our Ngamotu Marine Park off New Plymouth, which 100 years before was a regular calving ground for the whales. Then a few days later a pod of Orcas came through. I'm just so lucky to have all this on my doorstep!

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Back on 9th August 2005, a good diving buddy and everybody's friend Graeme Tilyard JP (known to all as Tilly) passed away after a long battle with cancer. Tilly was an "old school" diver and a great diving mentor for all us "soft c*ck" newbies.

Tilly, thanks for the laughs and smiles, and most of all, the memories. RIP.

The picture above was taken during a surface interval at the Poor Knights Marine Reserve, NZ. From left to right is Nigel Masters, Tilly, Flash, and myself.

Cabin fever

Winter here in New Zealand means the visibility in the ocean can vary from zero to 30m plus, and can slip from one extreme to the other in a day. Yesterday, the cabin fever reached new heights and I opted to take a dive off the coast despite the 35 knot northwester and rising swell.

With the rebreather on, I jumped into the scrotum shrinking 12C water (well it would have been scrotum shrinking, but luckily I had my toasty Fourth Element thermals on under my drysuit). After checking that the controllers were still operating, I descended to the seabed.

The 0.5m visibility water obscured almost everything. I even collided with rocks the size of a car... striking the exact same spot on my head where my surfboard clobbered me during a wipe-out the day before. Fifteen minutes passed and I was considering calling the dive, but as luck would have it, I found a patch of cleaner water with about 1m of visibility. Staying motionless, I hovered over a hole where I knew a large but friendly octopus normally resides, but it wasn’t there. Instead of the octopus in the hole, I found three seahorses huddled together at the entrance. Their tails were wrapped tightly around an old section of encrusted chain.

Because I was just staying in one place the whole time, all the local marine life was either coming over to check me out or just getting on with their busy daily routines. I spent the next 45 minutes just watching the social complexities of a 1m by 1m quadrant of reef. Word must have got out that I was there because all sorts of the harder to find species introduced themselves to me. The only thing I never saw were any red spiny lobsters, but I could hear them all around me, particularly the bucks as they clicked some kind of code at each other.

After the dive, I clambered out of my dive gear and got soaked in the process due to the horizontal rain blowing at me from all directions... but guess what, that has to be one of the best dives I had this year!

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Today is going to be fun, I have to chase up some helium, oxygen, and Sofnolime. Hopefully everything will be sourced before Friday, as I'm heading north to dive off the Great Barrier Island. Visibility there is usually very good, with plenty of wrecks and reef to explore.

Dry dive and a full frontal exposure

After eight weeks of waiting, my Inspiration rebreather was finally reunited with its electronics (the working heart of the machine). The first thing I had to do was check that the "repaired" parts were working, so I decided to do a dry dive on the unit.

After setting everything up, I strapped my Inspo onto my back and began the 'dive' from the comfort of a chair in my lounge.

Being first thing in the morning, I was still wearing my dressing gown. This presented no problems until my wife asked me to go and get the mail. "Okay, no hassle", I thought. Pulling on a pair of sandals, I walked out of the house and up the driveway to the mailbox whilst monitoring the oxygen level I was breathing on the rebreather. As I approached my mailbox I could hear a car coming up the road. I picked up my pace a fair bit and lunged towards the mailbox, hauling the mail out. All good, but my neighbour was away on holiday and wanted me to collect their mail too.

The neighbour's mailbox is separated from mine by a planted border of small bushes and a concreted driveway. I was now sprinting as the sound of the car got closer and closer. I ran around the end of my driveway, past the end of the bushes and over the concreted driveway. Almost tearing the mail from the box, I turned to catch a glimpse of the car coming into view. "Bugger!", I thought. Not wanting to be caught milling about in a dressing gown, and more strangely, wearing a rebreather, I quickly fired off a list of options for evading being seen:

1. Run down the neighbour's driveway and out of view.
2. Squat down and hope that the car occupants are not looking my way.
3. Try and get back to the safety of my comfy lounge via the shortest/quickest route through the bushes.

Hmmm, well I chose the third option! It was a good plan and went well up to the point I tried to get through the bushes. Fate being fate (and it's always cruel), the car passed me at the exact moment my dressing gown was pulled open by knee high bushes on either side of me. What a sight for the poor car occupants!!! It was enough to make them slow the car down to a crawl as they watched me free myself of the bushes, look at my controllers to check the oxygen level, and then to peg it back into my house. What a surreal moment to have in an otherwise average day! :-D

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My dry dive lasted 1 hour and 20 minutes. I watched the controller readouts run erratically for the first 15-20 minutes and then settle down to give consistent readings for the remainder of the time. A linearity check carried out as per the manufacturers instructions showed the new style R22D-AP cells were performing well.

I flew the Inspo manually for 50 minutes and conducted 'dil' flushes, high and low oxygen drills, bailout to open circuit and back onto the loop drills, and flew semi-closed for about 10 minutes to finish.

My positive and negative pressure tests went well prior to the simulated dive. I did discover that after a few dil flushes, the dump valve on the exhale counterlung failed to seal properly and developed a slight leak (I will service it immediately).

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Now to go diving!

Rebreather electronics

Yesterday I got an email from Martin Parker of Ambient Pressure Diving. He basically said that after testing my rebreather electronics, they could not reproduce the faults I reported (a power drain in the batteries when the unit was switched off and erratic readouts on the controller displays). Martin's solution to my "intermittent problem" is to replace the wiring loom in the Inspiration lid.

This is not quite the replacement lid that Martin originally stated I'd get, but maybe all the issues will resolve themselves now. Third time lucky maybe?

It looks like I’ll soon be back in the water enjoying the benefits of rebreather diving… Yay, no bubbles!

More new toys

Yesterday was an interesting day, but for all the wrong reasons! I started the day with a nagging thought in the back of my mind, namely, “What’s happened to that order from Australia.”

Ten or so days ago I placed an order for an Oxycheq helium/oxygen analyser kit and various other bits of dive gear with a company called Scubaroo Diving Supply. I had no means of tracking the parcel, so after ten days passed with no contact from NZ Customs to say how much duty they wanted before releasing the consignment, I got a bit worried about its whereabouts. Best thing would be to contact Scubaroo and ask for a tracking number, I thought.

Having quickly composed a short email enquiring about a tracking number, I paused for a second before pressing the ‘Send’ button. A thought had entered my head about how it would be typical for the parcel to arrive before Scubaroo had time to reply with the tracking number. I dismissed the thought and pressed the ‘Send’ button anyway. As I watched the ‘Sending mail’ progress bar race across my screen I heard the sound of a person getting out of a vehicle outside my window. “Bugger!” It was a courier delivering the parcel. “Spooky coincidence”, I thought as I signed for it.

In the blink of an eye I moved on from the whole spooky coincidence thing and entered the ‘new toy’ mode. The superbly packaged goodies were extracted from their bonds and carefully spread around me in an arc so I could survey them all at once. I finally could no longer resist the temptation of opening up the analyser kit and playing with the analysers.

Inside the box, in a pre-moulded foam tray were three small objects. One was a charging unit, and the other two were the oxygen and helium. I proceeded to turn on the oxygen analyser. Nothing happened, the display was dead. I tried again and again but it wouldn’t start up. Okay, time to see if the helium analyser would show more signs of life, but it too was unresponsive.

Not beaten, I looked out some tools to remove the back of the oxygen analyser. The voltages of the three AAA batteries inside all carried a full charge. Dead batteries was not the problem.

Time to get in touch with Scubaroo and advise them that the analyser kit was ‘dead on arrival’. Thoughts of overzealous postal workers throwing the poor analysers through an x-ray machine with the power setting set to somewhere between fry and incinerate raced feverishly through my head as I composed a frantic email to Scubaroo. It was all too much to take, so I sent the email and quietly abandoned the analysers in their box.

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Both units had the same power-on switch marked clearly with the letters ‘Pwr’. My instinct with new things is not to force anything where it doesn’t feel like it wants to go. In this case the switches were pushed in a left/right motion, no movement. Pressing the end of the switch caused the switch bar to sink into its housing and then return to its previous position, but the units would not power up. I even tried various lengths and sequences of pushes. Nothing.

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My wife came home and opened the box containing the analysers. Seeing the ‘Pwr’ switch on the oxygen analyser indicated where the power-on switch was and she turned on the unit. The display gave an indication of the oxygen cells reading in all its yellow back-lit glory.

It appears that I was a ‘slow maze learner’ that day. Apparently the switches had an up/down action, not a push or side-to-side action! “IDIOT!”

Both units work extremely well when powered up.

I’d like apologise to Ben Giddins of Scubaroo Diving Supply for my stupidity and for any anguish I caused. Ben’s customer support is the best I’ve seen in the diving industry and I heartily recommend getting your dive supplies from Scubaroo Diving Supply (http://www.scubaroo.com.au).

New toy - Silent Submersion UV-18

The 'Inspo' lid was dispatched back to Ambient Pressure Diving this morning, and as predicted, my new Silent Submersion UV-18 (underwater scooter) arrived into the care of Nigel Lees, who also took delivery of two new SS UV-18 scooters for his wife and himself.

Each scooter was broken down into three boxes for shipping, making the consignment total a grand nine boxes that required a forklift truck to lift the pallet off the delivery wagon. Nigel quickly found my three boxes containing the battery, hull and charger, and the motor section. As we loaded them into my station-wagon, I soon forgot about my scrubber lid.

Assembling the batteries and scooter took no time at all. I’d seen how to do the assembly when I was lucky enough to be a support diver on the TSS Niagara 2004 expedition. Hopefully I’ll get into the water tomorrow morning and work out how the bloody thing operates! ;-)

Back to open circuit

I’ve just spent most of the evening carefully packaging my rebreather electronics for an exchange to a replacement scrubber lid from Ambient Pressure Diving. The turn-around time from New Zealand to the factory in England and then back to New Zealand usually takes three weeks. This is a major bummer. Somewhat typically, on the same day that the courier will take my scrubber lid away, my new Silent Submersion UV-18 DPV (Diver Propulsion Vehicle, or for lack of a better description - an underwater scooter!) will arrive here from the good folks at Silent Submersion Inc., Florida.

I guess this means that I will have to dust off my trusty twinset (Hogarthian rig) and go open circuit again. To be honest, I enjoy open circuit as much as diving closed circuit, even with all the noisy bubbles that churn their way to the surface.

What the hey… It’s all diving and time in the water getting wet! Bring it on!

Freshwater rebreather dive

My "breather" finally got out for a dive this month. After a couple of false starts earlier in the month, I packed the scrubber, checked the battery voltages, lubricated the o-rings and reassembled the Inspo (Australian slang for the Inspiration rebreather) ready for a freshwater dive in Lake Taupo on Sunday 10th April.

During the positive pressure test after assembly, there was a loss of pressure in the rebreathers loop. With the aid of soapy water, the leaks were quickly found and resolved (a small leak in the exhale hose connection to the counterlung tee-piece and from the dump valve.) The unit now held both its positive and negative tests. The auto diluent valve (ADV), manual inflators and Auto Air all worked without any problems.

Nigel Lees drove Dave Maddox and myself across to Lake Taupo via the Forgotten World Highway. After almost three hours of snaking through tight turns and unsealed sections of road and we were standing at the side of the lake in a small settlement called Pukawa. Our three Inspirations were unloaded quickly from the vehicle and the side slung tanks (for open circuit bailout off the rebreather loop) were placed at the waters edge for putting on in the water. After calibrating the rebreathers to account for altitude (Lake Taupo being at a height of 356m above sea level) and ambient air pressure, we pulled on our drysuits, strapped on the VR3 dive computers, and donned the Inspirations for pre-breathing the scrubber.

As always, a small group of onlookers watched as we approached the water and proceeded to ask the usual set of questions. Nigel took the role of spokesman for the day and answered with a knowing tone which seemed to appease the onlookers curiosity. I was getting too hot in the drysuit and walking about with the 32kg rebreather didn’t help, so I made a beeline for the water and geared up. Nigel and Dave pulled on their fins and side-slung tanks in the water. Dave had a 40cu.ft. aluminium tank, Nigel was using a 7litre Faber steel tank and I had a 10litre Faber steel tank (with an extra connector allowing it to be used as an off-board diluent source via the ADV.)

We all submerged and met up at the edge of a ledge in 3m of water. Here we checked for any bubbles (a sign of a leak in the unit) and adjusted the gear for comfort. Dave set off down the steep slope with Nigel and myself following behind. The water was 18C and the visibility dropped to about 8m after 18m of descent. Setpoints now at 1.3bar and using a modified frog-kick, we pushed out deeper following the now gently sloping contour of the lakes’ banks to a depth of 38m (Lake Taupo can get to a depth of 160m in places and we were diving a spot that went to 85-90m.) A thermocline in the water at 27m made the temperature drop to 15C and it was very noticeable (I heard Dave let out a yelp as he passed through it!)

Nigel was photographing the cheeky freshwater lobsters. At only 3-4 inches long, they would try and take you on by jumping up and snapping their pincers at you. The lake bottom is composed of mud with a fine silt sitting on top. Great care with buoyancy and finning technique are required to prevent a silt out. After 35 minutes of bottom time we turned and followed the slope upwards, taking care to stop at our first required stop depth.

The steep slope had occasional large rocks embedded in it. These rocks seemed to be places where small fish and freshwater lobsters congregated (they looked like they were having committee meetings or something very similar.) Nigel and Dave pressed their masks up close to one such gathering, but nothing seemed overly bothered by their presence. Ah, the joys of no bubble diving!

It was time to play at 14m with Dave deploying a DSMB (Delayed Surface Marker Buoy) which was yellow and had the word "EMERGENCY" written down its length. This type of SMB is fired off when there is a problem on a dive and assistance is required! When he pulled it out and was about to inflate it, I grabbed his attention and asked if he really wanted use that particular SMB and not his orange one for doing deco on. Dave signalled back that all was well and the SMB shot off to the surface dragging the line out of his reel effortlessly.

With all our stops completed, we switched our setpoints to 0.7bar just before the 3m ledge and made our way up the shore. In water shallow enough to stand in we closed our mouthpieces and walked out of the water. Very quickly we were all reminded of how heavy the units are when not supported by the water.

A quick check on the dive computers showed a runtime of 77 minutes.

We got all the gear packed and loaded into Nigel’s vehicle and then we headed home with one stop for refreshments and a blueberry muffin.