Fish

I went diving last weekend. Usually we just go somewhere around Island Bay, which is the suburb of Wellington that faces South across the Cook Straight. Last Saturday we decided to go diving out past Red Rocks, which is the area further West past Island Bay along the South end of the North Island. We're talking four wheel drive access only. Cory, Colin and I met up at Cory's house Saturday around 1. Now, Eric, Cory and I actually all have four wheel drive vehicles, but none of them are really meant for off road use except for maybe Eric's Range Rover and where we were going, it wasn't going to cut it, because we were taking these





Now, we were meeting Eric and Dana out at Red Rocks so Colin and Cory took Cory's buggy and I was riding Cory's 400 cc Suzuki quad bike. We packed everything up on the buggy and headed out.










I might have mentioned that Red Rocks is four wheel vehicles only. There's all kinds of signage to that effect because, well, some people just don't listen. The signs are there becuase to get out to where everything interesting is, you have to get through "Devil's Gate". It's kind of hard to explain, let's just say that I wouldn't drive my Land Cruiser through there unless it wasn't my primary vehicle. It's kind of like this





Here's me trying to get through. You can see I have half my body in front of the handlebars, trying reaaaaaaally hard not to wreck Cory's quad getting it over the gate. It is quite steep




Now obviously I didn't take any of these pictures. Colin came along for the ride and the view and the photography, he doesn't do the diving thing. These are all some preliminary selects from the pictures he took that day. When he gets them up on Flickr, I'll get a link up here so that you all can have a look. I did bring a camera , they're just still on the camera. So here's the rest of the pix Colin e-mailed me, I'll post mine as soon as I get around to it.


Our spot



Me getting my suit on



Cory and I changing



Eric and Dana show up



Cory getting ready to go in




Cool pic



Red Rocks is purdy





I will say this, in the middle of Winter, in Wellington, the ocean is fucking cold. My suit keeps me pretty warm but the bare skin on your face feels like it's on fire for the first five minutes you're in the water. Eric and Dana were scuba diving for lobster and Cory and I were snorkeling for fish. It was a pretty nice day. There was only some moderate wind, but the currents were downright dangerous. I stopped for a second to reload my speargun, and when I looked up I was half way out to sea and it was not easy swimming back against the current. Eric and Dana got a couple lobsters and Cory got three fish. I didn't get any fish, the current was too strong for a rookie like me, but I got the biggest Paua I've ever seen in my life. I found an even bigger one, but my knife was going to break before that sucker was going to come off his rock. So I caught a couple steaks at the Supermarket, grabbed the STFU&GBTW gang and everyone who went out, plus wives and kids and some other people went over to Eric's house for some fresh seafood on the grill.

On tap for this weekend. Work!