Cable Bay
Sunday 17th June 2007
Things were looking good for the up and coming trip out of Cable Bay on a Sunday for a change. Weather was good with some of the best frosts being recorded for this winter so far. And then it happened I received the call from Mark Hellewell telling me that there were only two people on his trip. With only Mark and myself with our names in the hat I had to rope in a couple of non-members to make up the crew for the day and these were Adam Cook and Nigel Wilson.
We met at my place at 8am on a fine and frosty Sunday morning and soon had Li'l Grunter out and hooked up behind the ute. We headed away on what was meant to be a dive trip but first we had to stop on the Cable Bay road and try to subdue a nice wee 80 to 90 lb boar which just happened to be running down the road with no worries in the world. Unfortunately for us and fortunately for him he had four legs and we only had two, so like the pig at Kaiteriteri on the last trip he lived to fight another day.
We then carried on and launched the boat and were off. We decided to carry on straight to Whangamoa Heads and try our luck. Mark and Adam were first away and returned with some nice cray's (Adam 3 and Mark 1), then it was Nigel and myself, I was surprised to get down and find that the visibility was good. When we returned we had a few Cray's as well (Nigel 4 and myself 3).
Adam and Mark decided to go back down in the same area for the second dive and as we watched some bubbles going around in circles for quite some time and then when he surfaced it was Mark, he had chased one cray around and around until he got him. We then picked Adam up who added to the catch with a further one.
Nigel and I decided to try some new areas where it looked good, nice country but not too productive, as Nigel saw nothing and I saw two and returned with both of them, and also saw the largest ray on the bottom that I have seen for some time.
We thought that someone was going to have to go down and free the anchor as it was not budging, so while we were deciding on who had enough air left, Nigel's weight belt and catch bag slipped off and went straight to the bottom. Just then we noticed that the anchor had let go and we were on the drift at a fast pace. Nigel grabbed one of the tanks that had 50 odd bar in it and had a look but could not find it. We headed back to Cable Bay where we asked Mark to back the ute down, he declined the offer. We had the boat washed and parked up by 3:30pm and that was the end of another great dive club trip.
I look forward to seeing more divers out there in the up and coming trips or maybe when the weather warms up for some. Please support your committee by putting your names forward for these trips as they are great days out and it shows your support for the job they are doing for us the members.
PS. water temp was 13 deg, warm.
Grant Thorn
