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.
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