Diving New Zealand: Take Two

Yesterday I ventured out for a second dive. After getting an invitation to join a few others from the lab, I hurried myself to Warkworth to rent some air, and gathered all my new gear that would make this dive that much better than the last. An extra 3 kg of lead for my belt and a new pair of 5 fingered gloves. After gearing up, putting the tank and BCD on, we ventured through the parking lot and into the shrubs. With my head down, watching the moving shrubs in front of me, I trotted onward, uncertain of where these Kiwis were leading me. This eventually broke into a hill, about 30 degrees, which we marched down and over the small section of fencing that had fallen over. Now, by this point I believed I would be at the shore...I was not. The next obstacle was a rocky stairs, probably 6 meters of these reasonably nice stairs, leading down to the rocky shore. Easy enough going down, but your probably guessing what would eventually be my problem. Anyway, we had made it! Arie, Paul, Anna, and I ceremonially spit in our masks and jumped in. I also have to say that thanks to Errol, my spring straps were modified to fit my flippers, and they worked like a charm! So back into the New Zealand blue I went, among the dancing kelp, keeping with the swells and trying to take a few pictures in the process. It was a different dive from the first, as everyone had their own camera! Two of them I believe were toting Cannon G12 (or some version of that family of camera) such as I have, but with housings of course. My Intova was decent, but desperately needed a strobe. I either need to invest in a strobe or a housing for my G12. Anyway, the slower pace was nice, and although I did not cover as much ground, I saw plenty. Being an invertebrate fanatic, I spent much of my time routing around between the kelp stipes, looking for critters. At first I saw mainly these beautiful little anemones, bright blue tunicates and intriguing sponges, very colourful against the purple rock.

And as I wandered along the rock wall, I noticed that the floor of this crevice, where the water was swaying through, was blanketed by these seemingly delicate little anemones, probably only an inch wide. This of course in all its awe, starts the mind thinking. Why in this one spot would they appear in such numbers? Is it the flow of water providing food? The hard bottom for which they can attach themselves? The amount of shade the crevice supplies to shield them from the harsh rays of the sun? Once again, I am reminded of the reasons why I love this occupation so much. There are always questions.

I continued onward and notice even more intriguing organisms. More brightly coloured sponges, wandering anemones that instead of gluing themselves down, will "walk" from place to place, urchins moving to and from their hiding spots, and of course there are plenty of small "blenny" like demersal fish darting around. These small fish almost seem to like be photographed, but unfortunately my camera had a hard time focusing.

I also saw my first lobster. I apologize for the quality of the next few photos as it was either dark, or it was moving too much, or too far away so I got a lot of backscatter from my flash that ruined the picture. The lobster anyway, was underneath a large boulder with his antennae sticking out slightly. It was not interested in having its picture taken, but I took one anyway.

Being from the Bay of Fundy where visibility is some time barely 2 meters when we dive, combined with the greater tendency to find benthic fish rather than pelagic, I tend to keep my head down and wander the bottom. Fortunately I decided to put my head up, for there were tons of fish everywhere. Small fish beginning to come out as it approached dusk, and the ever present snapper (who I had for dinner that night!). There were a few very large snapper that hardly seemed to fear us.

After so many futile attempts to take pictures of fish, I decided just to watch them. Once Arie returned from what I found out later was a chasing of an eagle ray, we surfaced and swam back to the beach. It was a great dive and nothing could put a damper on the day, not even the cliff that I suddenly had to scale...or the hill...or the shrubs...After sitting behind a desk for almost 3 months (longer if you count the call center!), lets just say I was embarrassingly out of shape, and quite winded. I caught my breath after 2 minutes back at the lab, and cleared my gear, ate my snapper, and then promptly went to bed. A great second dive, and wouldn't have traded it for the world...even with the cliff!