A Winter Dip with Mr Rotavator

Diving For Dinner

On this trip Gazza, Stu and I went diving for scallops. As you can see from the pictures, the bag full of scallops told of our success.


To a casual on looker, the sight of a bright red or white buoy floating on the ocean’s surface is a sign that lobster or crab are lurking beneath.

Mr Rotavator counting
and
sizing the days catch
to be cooked for dinner tonight!!!

Such a buoy usually marks a spot where a crab pot has been deposited on the sea bed.
But had such an on looker been near a particular buoy Saturday morning off the east coast, he or she might not have noticed a stream of bubbles coming up to the surface near that buoy, or that it was moving slowly with the current. He or she almost certainly would not have immediately recognized that below the buoy, which was connected by a length of rope to a mesh bag on the bottom, was a diver swimming along the bottom in search of his prey.

It can be hard diving against a current - you get tired quickly and in some cases it means you can't dive at all. However, you can take advantage of a current and use it to actually improve your dive. Drift diving is done in a current where you enter the water in one location... and exit far far away! Drifting with the current is like flying underwater - you literally just go with the flow!

When you are drift diving you can cover far more area than if you were just swimming along in slack water. This is useful for things like catching scallops because you can just pick them up along the way.
What can I say? Yes, we are at it again doing a sneaky sneak off dive.
The team got out to enjoy another great morning after the obligatory breakfast at the White Rock cafe. Even though the weather was a little poor, that darn lack of sun,warmth and only seeing rain and gloom, but hey, were going to get wet anyway.

On the helm

But despite that I could think of no other place that I’d rather be than at sea overlooking the cool clear waters. The viz looked awesome. The Viz at the moment is around 8 to 10 metres, or down to 1 if your following Mr Rotavator dragging a heavy bag full of scallops.

Stu & the Rotavator
unload a bag of scallops
 for sorting aboard Fortius

The haul
I'm tired, but real happy with a good haul!
 Almost as good as the
 "good old days out west"!

 Because we have dived this site many times before we knew exactly where we needed to enter the water and in which direction we needed to drift. As we had struck out on the flat fish last week we decided that a bag or two of scallops might be a good consolation.


Anyone like fresh scallops?

Back from the cold

Air temp 1.0 degree, sea temp 6.0 degrees, dive time 30 mins,

 bravado high,

 scallops plentiful, hands and face numb,

safety stops foregone

in favour of a coffee and bacon roll..

Time to dust of the ice from my dive gear."It takes a special kind of idiot to enjoy local diving,"  I am proud to say that I am a special kind of idiot along with my diving buddy Gary.  So this weekends adventures in fishing/diving were a wee bit on the chilly side. That might be the understatement of the year depending on who you ask. On the other hand, it was also a great weekend of fishing/ diving with a good bunch of friends.
The water is cold, looks uninviting, intense with big spring tides. Before you even think of dipping your feet in out here, you better have a dry suit, thermal under suit, wool socks, extra lead weights, lift bags, and a warm flask of coffee. (Gaz broke out nasty flask of teeth drying Hibiscus tea).
One of the most bracing truths about winter diving is that at this time January/February, its the coldest part of the year, January through March, the cold water has killed off the plankton blooms and normally gives some great vis, apart from today.
  The tidal changes here are up to 30 feet every 6 hours and most of the dives are performed in some sort of tide which can as in this case, kick up the sediment from the seabed. The brilliant vis of  last week has been replaced by some dirty water – spring tide and strong winds to blame. The water colour on the way down was a combination of blues, greens and browns, in patches and streaks, but although vis was poor near the surface, on the bottom it was a do-able 3-4 metres. Not great for this time of year. With temperatures barely reaching 5 degrees Fahrenheit, you wonder what drives people to jump in the ice cold water and go diving. Well, the answer is easy: they want to collect fresh scallops!