Why do you want to dive in a lake? They’re boring!
If you love diving and exploring new dive sites a dive in Lake Taupo is definitely worth the trip and this year was no exception.With fantastic sunny days, stunning views across the lake and the opportunity to meet new divers everyone had a great weekend away.
We headed up after work on Thursday and it was a case of say hi to strangers and head to bed and meet up properly over breakfast in the morning.
We headed out to 4 Mile Bay to dive the wall at Wharewaka – a great first dive to practice our buoyancy & sort our weighting. After discussing the dive plan and allowing for the altitude we were keen to get underwater. The water was 21 degrees and visibility 15-20m – except for when divers got too close to the lake bed! There were plenty of feisty koura to observe as they wave their claws at us.
That afternoon we headed over to Acacia Bay Point with my favourite entry at the lake – jumping off the rocks with a 10m wall to descend along and a large weedline in the 5m mark. The first dive here was into the bay as an orientation to our night dive planned for after dinner. Along the weedline there is some large tree fall, home to lots of local fish life, and the point is a great place to practice safety stops and SMB deployment.
We ended back at Acacia Bay on Saturday morning for a Deep Dive – Claire had heard of a drop off in the area but had never dived it so as we headed out to 30m we were all keen to explore the dive site and sure enough we found the drop off with a wall from 7m to ~24m and ~30m long. We also found the thermocline with the temperature dropping to 17 degrees at 25m.
The rock wall was interesting and after noting several smooth holes in rocks and on the wall itself and strange markings on the rocks, we wondered if we had found some evidence of pre-European fishing in the area.
After discovering that the flow down the Waikato River was half that of what we needed for a drift dive we opted to head back to the wall at Acacia Bay and get some photos to send away for assessment. It turns out that according to a geologist the lines are “differential cracking he said. It all comes down to the crystalline make-up of the rocks, any inclusions, and the medium its in (air or water, acid or alkaline)…Even the curved one, said i? Anchors he said.” Oh well we still had fun exploring and I will definitely head back to this area on my next trip.
So what is needed for a successful dive trip?
Great Dives √
Great People √
Beautiful Scenery √
Lots of Food √√
Who will join us in 2020?
Claire
Just to prove I was there!