international women of mayhem .. reunite! and dive … and drink ..

nells home .. finally!! but just for a little while so we made the most of it by going up to the Poor Knights for a weekend on the Pacific Hideaway with a bunch of our friends.  this time was my time to get my own back.  previously, bloody old dirty old nell had laughed at me all weekend for having to get in and out and in and out of my wetsuit.  time for me to get my own back!!  but i didnt mock here as much as shes mocked me in the past.  okay – except for watching her try and cram her fat ass into her drysuit before we even left.  MUWAHAHA!
(she’ll get me back seeing as i cant cram my own fat ass into a drysuit of my own yet .. and i am borrowing andrews suit).

we almost managed to book out the entire boat with nell and myself, anna and andrew, marcia (who shalt now be known as murray), skip, craig (or lala) alex and her friend rob, maria (the scallop diving queen) and nells ex (and good friend) lindsay.  lindsay and rob and maria were all signed up to do their advanced open water certifications.

we stuffed ourselves quickly on breakfast at schnappa rock on saturday morning and then piled onto the boat and headed out to the poor knights.  i always get a giggle heading out there on the boat – we dont know which dive site we will hit first and you just know that whereever it is, as mark can really pick them, that its going to be brilliant!

nell and lindsay hanging out on the stern of Pacific Hideaway leaving Tutukaka marina

sure enough, the first place we stopped was The Gardens – a lovely dive site on the western side of Aorangi Island. here we planned on taking the students through peak performance buoyancy as it didnt look likely that we were going to be able to get on to the wrecks on the trip home on sunday.

blue-eyed triplefin

they did really well!  theres a lot to learn on your first dive at the Knights especially when you are not used to the temperatures – twas a balmy 15/16 degrees – and then theres the surge and the not knowing what to expect as we most often giant stride off the back of the boat and then swim over to the wall or the descent point.  we made a nice slow descent but at about 8m, lindsay was having problems with his ears so i showed him how to equalise with a hood on. we were surrounded by sandaggers wrasse and had to stop and give way to schools of mackerel.  there were loads of demoiselles, very small males, small moray eels and my absolute favourite the blue eyed triplefin.  i also found an elysia nudibranch.  lucky we had skip on board so he could identify it from my “leafy green with blue spots” description.

From The Gardens, we headed up to Northern Arch.
Theres just something about Northern Arch, its not my favourite spot and I cant quite put my finger on why.  For this dive, I used it as a chance to complete my “Guiding Certified Divers” requirement for my Divemaster Internship.  The dive briefing went well however before I had been through the missing buddy procedures, another person had Annas attention.
the wall just to the right of the arch was amazing in the sun.  we ventured over to the arch and had a quick peak in but at 14m there was more than of a current than i was happy with, so we turned around and headed back and caught up with nell and marcia.  all over the wall are hundreds and hundreds of tamja verconis and clown nudibranchs – and their egg rosettes.  dirty little buggers have been very very busy.  perhaps the lower visbility is due to all the nudibranch spunk in the water.  oh well – i bought Lindsay back!!

from the arch, we puttered on down to Trevs Rocks which was to be a really nice place to do our Underwater Navigation dives. there was a lovely eagle ray sitting at about 11m and the kelp forests were great to weave in and out on.

before i go too much further, i have to give a big shout out to our dive guide, tank filler, anchor hoister and bad bad bad story teller pete.  dont believe a word he says.

hmm, would you trust this man with your anchor?

how about THIS guy?

so we cruised down to Middle Arch which was perfect and completely sheltered from the waves that were crashing on to the western side.  i had really hoped that we would be spending the night in RikoRiko Cave and if so, i was planning on doing the night dive.
i dont didnt like night diving but woooooooooooooo!  i did this night dive – and Middle Arch is one of my all time favourite spots – and now i really like night diving.
we only went about 20m during the whole dive!  the wall above the entrance to bernies cave is completely covered in blue bell turnicates and at night with the torches, the whole wall was electric blue.  there were plenty of eels out and the demoiselles were hiding under the rock and overhangs.

after the night dive, it was time. oh yes time.  time for lamb shanks.  mark and denises lamb shanks are like lemon and paeroa.  world famous in new zealand.  there wasnt even enough time to get a photo of them.  they went down faster than the titanic!  during dinner, neil diamond got put on and we had .. just a few .. drinks. mark the skipper woke up at some minutes past midnight and heard nell and i still up. she’d put the hard word on me “you’re a divemaster doing two things wrong.  one, you’re getting drunk before a deep dive and two, youre getting your students drunk before a deep dive”.  so i sent the students to bed.

well!  we hadnt seen each other for ages, so after finishing the 1l bottle of bombay sapphire she bought me as a present, we started on lala’s bottle of rum.  sitting out there on the stern deck, in the moonlight with the light coming through the arch and the calm waters, what more is there for two friends to do but to talk shit??

the next morning, it wasnt exactly sunny.  but it was early.  and theres nothing better than an early morning dive.  and this was to be an early morning deep dive.

we made sure the buddy checks were done comprehensively and buddied up rob and lindsay and then alex with maria and i hovered around the back of the boys.  and then we dragged their butts down to 26m and giggled at their narc’edness.  its funny – everyone says they are not narc’ed or they didnt feel anything but you can see it in their eyes and their slow movements. there was a beautiful long tailed stingray in the sun near us but we didnt make it into the air bubble before we needed to ascend.  it was a truly fabulous early morning dive.

south harbour - never seen it so rough

we had a naturalist dive to do for the guys to finish off their advanced open water and it would have been cool to do it in blue mao mao arch but we took one look at south harbour and thought bugger that!  mark took us down to rikoriko cave and blew his conch and told his japanese submarine stories.  everyone loves the cave – its so freaken cool!  i could go on and on about the cave, but i have blogged it previously.  it rocks, get in there, end of story.

so we headed north east up the islands again.  mark was looking for a good spot for us.  and he found it. he basically dropped us right on top of Landing Bay Pinnacle.  and i mean right on top.  we dropped down the anchor line to about 10m, swam north and there it was.  nell and i took lindsay and maria on their naturalist dive and lala came along for the ride.  we went to 18m and then swam around and up the pinnacle til it was time to do our safety stop which we did whilst swimming back to the boat.  and we popped up right on the side of the boat. i found a sea hare!  i think it was a julian.  i pointed it out to lindsay and maria.  not too sure if either of them saw it though – they still need to get the hang of sticking their faces right into the walls to see all the really cool little stuff.

and the last dive of the day … ahh, i managed to convince nell to stuff her fat ass into her wet suit one more time and we did the chimneys of Red Barron Cave.  we descended down to 12m looking for the first chimney and i found a firebrick starfish just hanging out.  we then descended down to 18m where we found a really large one.  swimming inside, you look up to see the light of the outside of the rocks and are surrounded by fish.  i am really glad i still had a torch attached from the night and deep dives!  we found a massive stonefish – grumpy old bugger that he was.  turning around and looking out the entrance, it was filled with fish too.  they must have just parted when we swam in. it was my 7th dive of that weekend and nell was looking a bit chilly in her wetsuit.  we cruised back to our ascent point and passed lala and rob (not without lala grabbing my leg from behind first – bastard) and found another chimney at about 10m.

we decided it was time to go up – there was raspberry vodka and tonic waiting for us.

this trip to the Poor Knights was some of the best diving ever.  think some of it was because for once, i was the one in the dry suit . oh, and that the other part of mayhem is home – even if its only for a little while.  tonight ……. beer and mussels!

oh yes and before i forget … Mr Burns came along too.  and had his photo taken with A Simpson …

or if you watch the show and can imagine the voice ... "Simpson aye ..."