Everyone loves to dive a wreck but it takes a certain amount of skill and ingenuity to scooter there, make the dive and come back to where you started!
HMNZS Wellington was a Leander class frigate of the Royal Navy and the Royal New Zealand Navy (RNZN). Originally commissioned in 1969 for the Royal Navy as HMS Bacchante, she joined the RNZN in 1982. She was decommissioned in 1999 and sunk in 2005.
The guys made their entry with scooter mounted compasses and navigated their way out to the Wreck of the F69. She along with the HMNZ Canterbury were purpose sunk as both dive attractions and artificial reefs.
Great dive by the looks of it. Huge effort from all involved, Bring on the rest of 2016!
HMNZS Waikato (F55) was a Leande batch 2TA Frigate. of the Royal New Zealand Navy. She was one of two Leanders built for the RNZN, the other being the Batch 3 HMNZ Canterbury. These two New Zealand ships relieved British ships during the Falklands conflict, freeing British ships for deployment.
This is a beautiful wreck dive! Listing to port in 30m of water she provides both a training site for entry level wreck divers, artificial reef and massive penetration dive stern to broken bow for the more seasoned over head diver. This site ticks all the boxes and is easy to reach from Tutukaka. What's not to like....
HMNZS Waikato was decommissioned from the Royal New Zealand Navy in 1998 and sold by the government. She was stripped in the Northland port of Opua and sunk off the coast of Tutukaka on 18 December 2000 as an artificial reef. In 2002, the sunken Waikato 's bow was separated from the rest of the ship in heavy weather.
This dive is as much as you want it to be! Great dive, Great friends and an awesome location to keep exploring :)
This is a place that I had set our sights on before coming to NZ. Both in online posts and Quest Journal it appealed due to its remote location and level of technical difficulty. Louise and I have had the chance to dive it over the last two years but you can expect to trade many days of humping gear and lots of effort to have the privilege of interacting with this beautiful dive location!
Jamie Obern has been organising project trips there for the last 8 years and the site has been investigated by Rick Stanton previously. Currently the Wetmules have been the team to push the furthest and deepest but the cave still will not yield a break through!
She is cold and deep! The bypass tunnel used to access the initial cave system drops out at 32m. The temperature is 6 degrees C throughout the dive! It has been explored deeper than 70m and this is more than than I have managed to access! Getting to 50+ meters in this place is an epic achievement personally, and the Cathedral room was worth all the effort. With marble clad tunnels guiding you down and to a sharp dog leg pinch, ejecting you in a huge crystal clear space is one of my most prominent memories from diving here in NZ!
A diver can run shallower and head up toward a siphon but as yet no one has established any going passage at shallower depths. This is definitely rebreather territory - the percolation in the top of the cathedral room will silt out an open circuit diver in seconds!
It is a huge effort taken on by many individuals to make diving possible in this place. Freezing, altitude, cave diving is not easy to do and it is only because a team of dedicated individuals that my NZ cave diving dream has become possible! Thanks to all involved over the years. Legends!
The Poor Knights is known world wide for its diving. Jaques Cousteau rated it within his top ten diving locations! Many flock to this huge marine sanctuary to visit sites like Blue Mao Mao Arch and Rikoriko Cave but the majority have only scratched the surface!
Although excellent diving is available in within recreational limits sites you may have dived many times before become completely different when you get below 40m. The use of DPV's in conjunction mean that large distances can be covered and a site can be thoroughly explored within the limits of time and gas.
The islands have many secrets that still remain undiscovered. In recent trips to the knights GUE teams have found large Black coral trees in close proximity to each other as well as being exposed to the lesser seen species such as hammer head and bronze whaler sharks. The sheer density of species in this marine reserve is phenomenal!
One of the greatest ship wrecks in NZ is Mikhael Lermentov an ocean liner owned by the Soviet Union's Baltic Shipping Company, built in 1972 she was the figure head of Soviet luxury cruising. On 16 February 1986 she collided with rocks in a remote part of the Marlborough Sounds, she sank in a depth of 38 meters so perfect for diving.
Louise and I made the journey last year and were blown away by the sheer scale of this behemoth wreck!
"Russ hanging out in the Bolshoi Lounge!"
"Getting some duty free"
"Some huge corridoors"
This wreck is a monster! We had several silt outs just from our exhaust bubbles! Great fun but should be treated with the utmost respect! We are looking forward to diving her again in 2016!
Tuesday, 5 January 2016
Louise on the surface after our dive at Goat Island marine reserve.
You Sure get some funny looks in the Drysuits at this time of year!
