Picton, New Zealand (Post #101)
Mike writes…
After an easy three hour drive on Wednesday, March 22, from Marahau and Abel Tasman National Park, we arrived in the small town of Picton (population 3600)…
photo- Michele
…and checked into our rather nice, well-equiped accommodation, The Villa. About five days earlier, while in Wellington, we had called ahead to Diver’s World Picton to arrange two days of diving including four dives, three of which would be Adventure dives contirbuting to the experience we needed to earn our PADI Advanced Open Water certificates. After checking in at the Villa we walked about 100m to Diver’s World to check in and get fitted for the equipment we would be using for the following two days of diving. We were greeted by the friendly owner, Mo, who got us set up and the chatted with us about travelling. She told us she is also planning to leave her life behind for a while to take off on an extended trip. She also told us to expect the water around the Marlborough Sounds to differ quite a bit from that in Thailand — in fact, she told us it should be cold and murky. Alright! Sounds great! Well, personally i didn’t care so much. My main intention with diving from Picton was to add to our field of experience to enable us to dive comfortably in the Galapagos in June.
On Thursday we got up, ate our breakfast and assembled our lunch for the boat. We met our instructor, Brian, at the dive shop at 10 a.m., made the 10 minute drive to Waikawa Marina and boarded what is thus far the smallest dive boat we have been on. Just before we got on board, Brian told us there was no toilet on the boat so we should consider using the restrooms in the marina parking lot before we set off for the dive site. hmmm… this diving WAS going to differ quite a bit from what we experienced in Thailand where our boat dives were aboard a boat equipped to handle maybe 60-70 divers, included a buffet seafood lunch and deck hands to assist us with getting on and off the boat for our dives. This was a boat equipped to handle no more than 6 passengers and it was just Michele and i and the instructor.
After arriving at the dive site, Karaka Bay, Brian went over our “classroom” material with us and talked about what we would expect to see on the second dive which would be our Adventure Wreck Dive. We could tell straight away that Brian was a great instructor — the best of three so far. He was knowledgeable and took all of the “classroom” material seriously. Our first dive was just a warm up since we had only done 6 dives before and we wanted to work with our bouyancy control a bit before going on to the more serious Wreck Dive. Well, just as Mo said, the water was cold and murky. It was the lowest visibility we had yet encountered. Otherwise, the first dive was rather uneventful. The second dive, the wreck dive to the Vara, was pretty cool. Brian assigned us tasks to complete while looking around the wreck. These were essentially observational tasks such as measuring the wreck’s lenght in kick cycles and identifying any hazards the wreck might pose. The most exciting part of this dive was the huge Conger Eel Brian managed to coax out from under the wreck. The thing was at least 1.5 meters long and seemed to be as big around as my calf. AND, it kept swimming right at me!! I was sure it was going to try and bite me and no matter where i swam, it seemed to be following me! I remembered Brian telling us there might be a Conger Eel and he had advised us not to make a lot of quick motions because we might scare it off. Ha! This eel was definitely NOT scared of ME. I finished the day of diving feeling as confident as i had with my previous dives — so-so. Michele, on the other hand, had been having a lot of trouble controlling her bouyancy and was feeling a bit intimidated.
That night Michele told me she wasn’t at all looking forward to Friday’s dives and really just wanted to get them over with.
Friday, we met Brian again at the dive shop and loaded our gear in the van for the drive to the marina. This day Brian drove us out to a dive site in Double Cove near the wreck of the Koi. Just before our giant stride into the water, Brian pointed out a seal nearby on the rocky shoreline. Our first dive was our Deep Diver Adventrue Dive and we went all the way down to 29m where we performed some timed tasks to determine to what level the Nitrogen disolving in our blood was impairing our coordination and judgement (this is a concern with diving deeper ~ 25-30m or more because the deeper a person dives while breathing normal air from the cylinder, the more nitrogen gets dissolved in the blood). Michele and i both enjoyed having little tasks to do underwater and upon returning to the boat, i was really happy to find Michele feeling a lot more confident about her diving and, in particular, her bouyancy control.
After having a nice lunch including hot soup Brian brought along for us, we got back in the water for our Underwater Navigation Adventure dive. During this dive we only went to a depth of 15m and we performed some more tasks. We measured how long each of our kick cycles propell us and we navigated around using both a compass and objects laying on the sea floor. During this dive we also took a look at the wreck of the Koi and learned to “call” a type of fish called the Spotty. At times, Michele and i each had 7-8 of these guys chasing our fingers around — good fun. Possibly the best thing about this dive is it was the last of the five adventure dives we needed to complete to be PADI Advanced Open Water Divers! We’re now qualified to dive to 30m deep!
Saturday, after spending the morning at the dive shop using the internet (there is a small internet “cafe” in the shop), we made and ate our lunch and then I drove Michele to a couple of the local wineries for some tasting. Most of the local wineries are around Blenhiem which is just 25 minutes drive away from Picton. We started at Cloudy Bay which Michele found to be mediocre then continued to Mudhouse where an obnoxious British wine pourer joked with us between pouring customers (and herself!) tastings. Here, Michele couldn’t resist buying a bottle of a smoky pinot noir. Next we drove over to a couple of places a guy at the Villa recommended to us. First was Forest (hold on for the full name) where Michele bought herself a bottle of late harvest reisling and then on to an uneventful tasting at Framingham. Finally, as the clock was drawing towards 5:00, and the end of the tasting day, we stopped by Villa Maria which Michele found to be the best of the five wineries and she bought a bottle of gewurztraminer (sp). After all the tasting, i drove us back to Picton where we ate a great seafood meal at an atmospheric place called the Barn.
This morning we woke up, had our breakfast of cereal, boiled eggs, cottage cheese and orange juice before heading over to spend another two hours on the computers at the Diver’s World. This time was spent uploading photos and gathering information about the South America leg of our journey. While at the shop, we both bought ourselves masks and snorkels. This is the most important part of diving equpiment for a diver to own themselves because fit is very important. We bought the same model of masks we had worn during the two days diving in the Sounds because neither of us had one bit of trouble with theme leaking. Today was supposed to be our day for a 3-4 hour hike around sounds surrounding Picton but the weather didn’t cooperate — it was rainy and windy (actually this was true for every day we were here except Saturday). Instead, we spent the day trying to get some blogs put together and doing some travel planning.
Tomorrow we leave for our last city in New Zealand — Christchurch. We don’t expect to do much touring around there because we have only two nights and we need to go shopping for a pair of Brooks Beast (Mike) and some reading material since we might need it on the tiny Easter Island.
see yuh!
Tags: Category #26: New Zealand
Michele Harmon
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