Our first club event of 2015 was held on Matiu – Somes Island right here in Wellington Harbour. Each year we head over to the island loaded with dive gear and food to complete a beach and underwater clean up with DoC.
This year we started with a beach clean up along the north eastern beaches. Most of the rubbish on Somes floats over from Wellington and it was pleasing to see not a lot of it this year. We collected several bottles, 3 different balls – including a football, a flare case, food wrappers and random pieces of plastic.
After the ferries left we headed out to dive around the wharves. Either jumping of the main wharf or walking down to the WWII wharf all the divers had fun and collected rubbish as they went. Agin there didn’t appear to be a lot of recent rubbish – a few bottles and fishing line, a hammer and builder’s measure, a pot and tyres were amongst the haul.
There were also several large Wellington Nudibranchs & their eggs, terakihi,, moki and spotties as well as two large stargazers.
We also met lots of the locals including skinks, geckos,wetas, Black Backed Gulls and Oyster Catchers. That night we went for a walk around the island to see some more natives – in particular the Tuatara and Cook Strait Giant Weta.
After a lazy start the following morning we thought we should do some more work so headed down to the Lighthouse Bay. We collected a massive amount of rubbish off this beach last year but again there wasn’t a lot on the beaches. However it does show where the city’s rubbish can end up because there is no McDonalds or parking buildings on this island!
We will be back again next year to explore, eat, relax and clean up the environment so come join us in 2016.