The forecast for this year’s trip was definitely not the best but Jo, the DoC Ranger at Matiu/Somes had a cunning plan to get us diving the southern end of the island – a usually inaccessible dive site. We were keen!
16club members, both divers and non-divers, headed across on the ferry and after going through a gear inspection (next time we won’t forget to check the velcro on the weight pockets!) we were allowed onto the island itself.
Our first priority of course was lunch and the opportunity to get to know each other. After food and a briefing from Emma, another DoC Ranger we loaded the tractor and our dive gear headed over to the light house quickly followed by us.
The start of the adventure began once we saw the track down to the beach – just as well Wellington divers are tough and our friends and family are so helpful. The track was pretty steep and dive gear is not light!
The dive itself was fairly simple with rocky reefs and a sandy floor sloping to ~12m with a light current. After all the rains visibility was around 3m. There were lots of spotties, wrasse & juvenile blue cod, the rocks were pink with coralline algae and home to mussels and kina (don’t pat the kina people). Several seahorses were seen including one hanging on to a brittle star.
The good news was that there wasn’t a lot of rubbish to be found. Some bottles, new & old, a few pieces of plastic, a spoon and a dive knife. Claire and Stuart located an axel with wheels from what we imagine was one of the trolleys used to take supplies up to the lighthouse. After taking some information and bearings of the depth and current location it was bought in closer to the beach where it could be studied by DoC and MAANZ (Maritime Archaeology Association of NZ).
Unfortunately there was a fair amount of rubbish up along the beach, plastic of course – bottles, lids, straws & a grapefruit juice ring for milk bottles (who else remembers these?), shot gun cartridges, pieces of rope and a boogie board.
Emma did entertain the surface support by pointing out gull chicks and geckos and finding a giant weta to hold.
After the dive and the trek back up the hill it was time for coffee and cake (a big thanks to Linda & Joanne for the baking J) and time to relax.
By the time we had finished dinner and it had gotten dark the weather had closed in on us and the rain was pouring down – 20 minutes later it had eased enough for us to brave the elements and go out hunting for tuatara and weta by torchlight only! We headed back towards the lighthouse which Emma & Jo had mentioned as good weta territory – they may look scary but they are vegetarians and love the grass along the track. Being very careful about where we stood we found 3 giant weta and 1 tree weta outside of his motel.
We then headed around the circular track to find tuatara and find them we did – with 8 tuatara spotted of all sizes they were almost common! They were not as eager to be photographed this year and ran off the tracks as we approached but they are there and it is definitely worth staying overnight for the opportunity to see these animals in the wild. We also saw 1 common gecko – so they weren’t common at all.
After returning back to our houses and continuing many varied conversations we headed off to bed in the wee hours of the morning with nothing much planned to do in the morning.
Just as well we had nothing planned as the weather was shocking and Wellington and disappeared into the clouds. A good excuse for a lazy morning complete with coffee and conversation.
The first few divers escaped on the 10am ferry but the next sailing was cancelled – were we to be stranded another day? (fingers crossed – we had plenty of food and Pete found another bag of coffee stashed away so we were good to stay). After lunch though the weather cleared and the skies were blue and we managed a quick exploration of the island – narrowly avoiding being attacked by the breeding black back gulls!
Returning by the afternoon ferry we opted to stop for coffee in the sun in Day’s Bay and continued reminiscing about the trip just done and the others still to come.