Unorthodox use of jump spools

Well, whilst getting stuck into some more academics at home I needed to get my herb harvest drying for winter. Not the normal way I use my spools but it works surprisingly well! Just like using a jet fin to light a barbecue! 

Day one of fundamentals ITC

Well day 1 down and plenty of things tried, assessed, repeated and tried again. A tiring and rewarding day which has really highlighted the difference between teaching Vs prescriptively recounting slides slides to an audience.

Thanks to Jamie for your patience and to Mel for suffering my awkward yet hilarious contacts ;)

Another nice start to the day up in Tuts

A bit breezy but all set for some lectures, drills and in water practice.

Tune up V4.0

So we went back into the lake last week! Here is a few shots from the session.

The Blooms have died clearing the viz on the pump house side to about 8m but it has left a thick easy to disturb cloud of dead matter from anywhere thereafter. It was only after connecting the primary reel into the line course at 9m that we started to realise that even the slightest disturbance triggered a long staying particulate to hang in the water column.

It was a great but unexpected chance to practice some cave skills! Louise and I simulated single file exits through the muck and much to our relief have not completely forgotten how to efficiently exit on a line! Thanks Naomi for patiently waiting and taking some photos :)

All in all we got through switches, Line course exits, S Drills and gas sharing ascents. Not a bad day by any means. 

Thanks for Christain Naomi, and Louise for attending. I will sort another one out in the coming months and lets hope that the viz has improved even if the temperature had dropped somewhat.

You can smell the decomposition before you get in the water! The surface the growth has been enourmous, Although the weed grass in the shallows has a certain allure!

Lou's Birthday at Middle Arch

March the fifth saw us going out once again with Dive Tutukaka. The day had been planned for some time as it was also Louise's birthday. We joined our team mate Tim Oldfield at Oceans Hotel and set about sorting gear and getting it on El Tigre for the trip out.

We left Auckland at 4:30am to make the drive north and arrived just after 7am. At this point after analysis and marking of back gas and stages I encountered a problem! The inflator on my wing was shot and fizzing out gas, so much so that we could not risk diving it! In most situations this would mean an aborted dive for one person but thanks to a standardised kit configuration I was able to switch it out with a spare wing provided by Mel lowered on a spool from their apartment - one of the understated strengths of how we do stuff is apparent right here! So after a bit of kit swapping everything was on and we were ready to get out to the Knights.

With great conditions we traveled over in glorious sunshine and Louise was given her Birthday present of brand new terrifyingly pink Jet Fins from the guys at Tech Dive NZ! I will never loose her now!

SO the dive! We left the stern of the dive boat and scootered our way out South West deliberately missing the arch as we had grander plans. We quickly got to 30 and the reef starts to fall away in steep fingers. these fingers are great to see both on the way down but also to navigate the way back up! from here on the topography becomes steeper with great sponge life from 45 we headed down. We only hit the thremocline at 55-58m which was pretty deep to be encountering temporaturesof 20c to our max depth of 62m. Here we cruised the reef wall and amongst others saw large rays and I caught a sighting of a pair of Hapuka sitting under a shelf at 68 ish meters.

Heading on the return portion of the dive we brought up the average depth to 55m and after the switch moved on up towards 21 following the fingers and cracks as we went. This navigation afforded us the stops right where we wanted them - on the reef! We got plugged into the 50% bottles and migrated our way up to the cave at 15-12m then into the arch with the schooling fish life  for the 9m stop  from here after a bit of fun scootering we moved up to our last long stop at 6m. 

30 minutes is a long time if you are hanging on a line but because we can do our deco on the reef we sat in the suns rays watched the schools of Demoiselles and Mao Mao and scootered our way out and back along the reef looking for more interesting life.

After Tim had finished calling the Deco we moved up and out onto the boat for a cup of tea. A great dive! A great day for all and some interesting shots taken. The only down sides being that I as a birthday treat have to pay the helium bill. Oh well, Its only once a year ;)

Diving at Leigh Harbour

Thursday the 11th of Feb saw us head up to Leigh to dive around the Harbour. Louise myself and Olly from Global dive made our way up the coast to try another of our local dive site options. 

At about an hours travel time from Auckland this site is well within the grasp of a day trip and looking at the tides will get you a little more depth. The site runs to about 8m as you move away from the rocks but we stuck in the 5-7m range as there was plenty of weeds and rocky crevices to inspect. 

The aim of the dive was to allow Louise the chance to look for Macro species that are often disregarded on a dive and that can be prevalent in these kind of areas. On our hit list was Seahorse, Nudis and anything else wee. 

We decided the best way to run this would be to use a primary reel to create a profile for the dive. This also allowed us to probe in the weeds for specimens whilst Louise got stuck into taking pictures. Guaranteeing we were all on the same path and no one became separated in what was not the greatest Vis! The third team member was running a marker. 

Unfortunately no Seahorse this time but we shall persevere. Plenty of other critters though. 

The other great thing about this site is that its is straight off the rocks and therefore no sand to work its way into the finer points of your kit. You can also park really close to the exit/entry point so a really easy access. The downside is that there is regular boat traffic so make sure you have a marker up to indicate your presence to other harbour users. 

All in all a really nice dive. We will definitely be going back to inspect what other life lives in close proximity to with us on a day to day basis.

GUE Team Wellington Scooter from Shore Wreck dive!

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.

HMNZS Wellington F69 - Shore dive from Rob Wilson on Vimeo.

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!