OKIWI BAY
Sunday 9th December 2007
Friday night and a call from John H. put our Port Underwood trip on hold till
Sunday. With the best Sunday weather report for Croiselles the crew of John
Hornby, Stu Pope, Mark Hellewell, Brian Smith and myself meet at North Road to
load up and set off to Okiwi Bay. We were on the water by around 8:00am heading
for the scallop beds. Stu, John and myself hit the water in a reliable spot to gather
some tasty morsels. Viz was good and the water temperature around 15oC made for
a very pleasant dive. The scallops were there, and by the time my time was up there
was a good load in my catch bag. Ascent to a safety stop, and back onto the boat,
Brian began counting the booty. Final count had quota for divers and safety boat
persons, so it was off to another spot to have a go at some prickly crustations. As Stu
motored along a pinnacle was seen on the sounder. Several passes over the spot
revealed enough good looking country for a look. Mark and Brian kitted up and hit
the water to check out this new territory. Ten minutes later saw Mark back to the
surface with one good sized beast in his catch bag. Shortly after Brian returned with
tales of woe, and an empty catch bag. So that spot was NOT marked with and X!
Carrying on to our original destination, Stu, John and myself geared up for another
onslaught to hunt and gather. I took my sling, while Stu and John remained focused
on the crayfish species. Descending down to 23 metres the country looked really
interesting. As usual the first rock I looked under contained feelers. Laying the sling
aside I pushed my way under the rock to see three sets of feelers wagging at me from
different positions. First strike saw me battling with a strong beast........but I won,
yaaa!! Once bagged I looked to the others. Struggling further into the rocks I struck
out at the next accessible bug, only to lose the battle due to this cray having a nice
long escape route that was no access for the larger human species. When the
sediment settled I was able to look into the recesses to see the "big fella" looking
back at me well out of reach. Lucky for him, eh!
Picking up my sling I headed of to the south east (shore) direction. Rock inspections
revealed no more feelers for me so I turned my attention to the fish life. There were
large numbers of Parore swimming around and around. A couple of strikes saw two
of these in my catch bag, and it was time to return to the air breathing world.
Catchbags were emptied on deck and contents examined. Sadly Stu was not able to
slay any bugs on this excursion while John had done well with three goodies.
Now it was up to Brian and Mark again. So full of enthusiasm these two descended
to the depths with info from us as to were the bugs might be hiding. Time for lunch
onboard, followed by some precision surgery filleting the Parore.
Several boats passed by us and it was very disappointing to see a couple disrespect
the rules by travelling past at speed well within 200 metres. There are names for
people like this!
Mark and Brian returned with Mark bringing his quota for the day to the limit, and
sadly Brian lacking.
Back to Okiwi, dried off and loaded we stopped at the Rai for a debrief, cleaned up
the boat at Paul's place, and headed off to our individual destinations with a lovely
booty of seafood. Thanks for a great day out guys.
Cheers, and safe diving
Angus