Dive #7 Longcuts

Yesterday I did another snorkel out from Enclosure Bay, with Sophie from Gulf News along to get some photos and background info on the project.

It was a day of lessons, which can be best summarised as:

Shortcuts = longcuts

To save time and make the logistics of the day easier, I organised to meet Sophie not at low tide, but a few hours earlier, much closer to high tide than I normally dive. This meant that the water was a metre and a half deeper than I normally dive in, which made it harder to dive down to photograph anything or pick up some kina! The results were shorter spells of time down at the seabed looking for good photos, and my first kina spine stuck in my thumb as I grabbed at a kina as my breath was running… quite painful, it turns out!

The second lesson was, swimming and diving along the north coast of Waiheke on a day with a northerly wind, and therefore a northerly swell, is not a very productive use of time! Swimming in the big swell was tiring, there was quite a bit of sediment in the water, being pushed ashore by the swell I guess, and with the deeper than usual dives down, none of the photos were really great, although do give an idea that there is still plenty of kelp life left, away from the kina barrens:

I also got some video of the candidate site I highlighted back in Dive #4 …

…but it’s not great for all the reasons I mentioned above, so I’ll need to go back and do it again at lower tide on a calmer day. All good experience :)