“May the Forth be with you” Claire’s parting words as we left for Lake Taupo for the week.
The guys were all very excited about diving for a whole week. After we arrived, unpacked, and got dinner sorted. We headed off the guys loved their first experience of fresh water diving, dropping quickly to just over 18m in Acacia Bay. After a short Surface interval we completed a night dive the first of many for some of the guys. Heading back to the house there was so much excitement about what the next day would bring, and bring it did.
We started the day with a deep dive at Wharewaka to 27m, one student who was having such a great time at 27m he felt the urge to do somersaults. After much laughing over lunch about the antics of our deep dive the guys eagerly geared back up to snorkel the Mighty Waikato River!
So at this stage day two was a complete hit. Their deepest dive to date followed by a drift snorkel talk about spoiling them, that can’t be so after dinner they went for another night dive. Oh the faces as they put their suits on….
They did however get fresh warm cookies to warm up.
To make up for the freezing cold wetsuits we headed back to Wharewaka on Wednesday and got to explore the point, which they really enjoyed. But wait today is the day of the long awaited Drift dive, so over lunch they took to the slates they had marked out the river on during the drift snorkel, and planned their drift dive with a stop at the hot pools of course. With the training part of the week coming to an end we had a quiet night at the house well not too quiet everyone was so happy telling stories about what they saw on the drift dive and where they went, the different rock formations as they drifted along.
The last day was the best the jump off Acacia Point. The rock formations and the shear drop offs were amazing, some of the guys headed into the bay they wanted to find the pinnacle they spotted on the very first dive of the trip. With just one more night dive to go everyone was dreading putting on a cold wet wetsuit one last time, but they did and they were rewarded with what they all said was ‘such a cool night dive’ one diver was chasing Catfish, there was a Trout or two spotted, and plenty of Koura.
With the school part of the trip at an end we clean the house loaded the vehicles and headed for Tecfest, but that can be a story for another day.