Okiwi Bay
November 2006
The day started at the crack of dawn, 0530ish I think. It felt really early though when Mark Hellewell came round and picked me up and we travelled out to North road where we were to meet up with the rest of the team. We prepped the boat and headed out I was in the car with John and Grant. We had to stop shortly after we left because of a certain matter of the boat trailer and a chain.....nice work guys J After that was fixed we went straight to Okiwi bay without delay and on the way there I was somehow conscripted into writing the trip report.
Once at Okiwi we all got into our gear and hopped into the boat. We arrived at the chosen spot with a reasonable swell in the sea. Mark and Angus went for the first cray dive and came up about 40min later with 4 crays 3 were keepers and the fourth was too soft and returned to live another day. Then it was our turn. With the sounder playing up Angus dropped John, Grant and I over the side for a dive and found a sandy bottom at about twenty something metres. We swam around for a bit before coming to the conclusion that John's trusty compass wasn't working so we aborted the dive and surfaced empty handed. We then sped to the next spot for a scallop dive. Mark and Angus went down first and came up with quite a few scallops then John, Grant & I went under. The viz was quite good at about 4 metres and we got plenty of scallops. We surfaced to find that we were only four scallops over the limit, and returned these to the sea. We made our way back to the boat ramp where we were interviewed by someone from NIWA.
We nearly had a disaster after Mark dropped one of the bolts from the winch thing on the boat but fortunately recovered it from the murky depths. We then broke down and packed up our gear and then departed Okiwi Bay heading back to Nelson (this time the safety chain was remembered!!).
Once back at the place on North Road where the boat lives we unloaded it and washed it as well as dividing up our kai from the sea. I got to get fed for one more day by taking home a cray and my quota of scallops. We all then departed our separate ways and I got a ride home with Mark Hellewell.
Overall it was a good trip because I haven't been out diving for so long and I had been looking forward to getting out especially after all the last trips which had to be cancelled due to the crazy weather!
It was a successful trip because I got to get my feed of kaimoana (seafood) and it was an enjoyable trip.
By Emperor Joe Rae