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.


---
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.