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!