24 Hour Dive

It began with an innocent conversation in February:

“Oh yes, we used to do a sponsored dive in the aquarium when I was in university”

“Really? What did you collect for?”

“Galway Lifeguard station”

“Hmmm, we could do something like that”

Naomi and Lauren starting things off

9 months later, as I burrowed through a mountain of uncooperative canvas for the third time I was regretting my words. Paddy and I were trying to put up a monstrous 3 room tent, with no instructions and only a rough outline in our heads. It was 11.30. We’d been there since just after 9. Was the rest of the day going to be this bad? Luckily no. The only time that I heard any swearing or raised voices during the event was then. Eventually we  won.

This is who it was all for

The idea was simple. At least one buddy pair in the water at all times for 24 hours. All divers to collect sponsorship. All monies raised to go to the coastguard. Behind this concept lies a hidden minefield of logistics. For example, when applying to the council for a permit not only did we have to have a tsunami plan in place (Run up hill), but we also had to take into account the possibility of a terrorist attack. For the life of me I couldn’t think of any terrorist group that would be so heinous as to attack a group of divers on a beach collecting for the coastguard. However if they had, we were prepared.

                       ROAR

The call went out for volunteers. People signed up, were issued with sponsorship forms and headed out to extract as much money as possible from their friends, family and, in one case, local pub regulars.Saturday the 24^th of November dawned, bright, sunny and hot. Brilliant! The only part of the event that was beyond our control turned out right. From early morning on our compound grew and grew. At its height there were 7 tents, one caravan, 3 barbeques and a dozen flags. Occupy Scorching Bay was in full flow.

                     Sea Gypsies

3pm rolled around and our first divers got in the water. Lauren and Naomi were the flag bearers, literally as they placed the diver down flag in the bay to warn all and sundry of our presence. Everyone had to do a 45 minute dive, with a 5 minute crossover between dives. Some people did more than that, some a lot more. We managed our stated goal: for the entire day we had divers underwater. I’m pretty impressed at our dedicated divers. We also did a number of refresher and try dives to boost our numbers in the water.

          Sian Doing her first ever Scuba dive

Some figures: 108 individual divers, 48 dives, 6 Discover Scuba Dives, 3 truckloads of tanks, 4 hours and 3 minutes was the longest dive (take a bow Pete and Rob), 12 minutes was the shortest (A brilliant save by Paddy and Han as an unnamed buddy pair almost messed the whole system up by

           Pete & Rob after 4 hours 3 minutes

being late!), 0 was the combined minutes of sleep Claire, Paddy and I had (Even though we did each lie down for a while.) 8 was the maximum number of dives by any one person.

Oscar and I earned a free rescue from the boys on the boat as we delivered a pot of fresh coffee to them via snorkel. Always useful to make friends like that.

    Coffee

Delivery

Thanks to all the people who helped, and there were lots of you. Rachel, Scott, Emma, Lauren, Paddy, Claire, Tomo, Nicole, Rob, Pete, Luke, Dean, and Oscar pulled out all the stops on the day to make things run smoothly. Thanks to the volunteer crew of the Spirit of Wellington for coming over and practising some rescue manoeuvres with us.

         Sam going on her Discover Scuba Dive

Chocolate Fish Cafe, John Vaughan Sports, Oceanic New Zealand, Ripe coffee company and Waterloo pharmacy all sponsored prizes. Mostly though, thanks to all the people who gave their money to this great cause.

               Even instructors get tired

How much did we raise? Well final figures aren’t in yet but it will probably be around the $3,000 mark. Not too bad. We’ll be back next year to do it all again.

Brian Mercer