The 'Scuba Doo'

Sunday 22 Mar Mainly sunny and warm 21C Drove nowhere

After collecting some vital supplies from the bakery, mainly sandwiches, I headed into town to the Dive HQ, a sports shop in town. I quickly got sorted out with some diving gear and then strolled down to the Marina to help load the boat, the 'Scuba Doo'. I met the other divers as we walked down, Janice and Ash and their 5 month old son Amani from the USA, Ellie and Shane from Thames and Phil from Auckland.

We headed out of the the harbour and followed the coast round to Cathedral Cove before heading out to Mahurangi Island. We had a brief, but abortive effort to dive on the eastern side of the island, but the swell was too great, especially as all the other divers were novices. We motored around to the sheltered western side and Ellie and Shane jumped in first with me and Alex, from the dive shop, in shortly afterwards. As we were outside the marine reserve, Alex ws determine to find some decent crayfish and rapidly disappeared into the kelp hunting. I went fish watching with forays deep into the kelp to look for crayfish too. We found none that were large enough to catch, so after 35 minutes headed back to the boat. I enjoyed the dive as I hadn't dived for nearly 30 months and needed to remind myself of the basics.

We sat on the boat and ate lunch and drank coffee before we headed across to the mainland and Gemstone Bay. Here, we were back in the marine reserve, so no crayfish hunting this time. I dived with Ash this time, he was somewhat nervous as he hadn't dived for nearly a year. His bouyancy control wasn't good and consequently was hoovering air whilst he tried to sort himself out. Meanwhile, immediately we entered the water we were surrounded by Snapper and Blue Cod, some of the Snapper were huge. They were totally unafraid of the divers and followed us around all the time. I had heard that they do what their names says, and snap at fingers sometime. I kept my fingers well clear, but did come face-to-face with several large fish! We also saw Gurnards and Red Moki. Best of all, I found several crayfish, one male was enormous and quite agressive. Fortunately, crayfish don't have pincers, so are largely harmless. With Ash on reserve and me with still 120 Bar left we returned to the boat after 38 minutes.

At the end of the dive, we headed back to Whitianga where we arrived at around 4. The day served to remind me that I love diving and messing around on boats.