BSAC TRAVEL CLUB - Trip Reports - White Island, New Zealand

TRAVEL CLUB

White Island, New Zealand

by Catherine Corcoran

Our dive club chartered the 46’ launch “Waverley” with skippers Brian and Sheryll Gordon from Tauranga for a weekend of diving round White Island in March 2005 (late summer). 9 of us fitted on board comfortably and the cost for the weekend was about NZ$150 each + $25 for food. This compares very well with day trips in NZ which usually cost about NZ$100 for 2 dives. Waverley has open transoms on both sides of the stern deck with convenient steps to sit on, put on BCD etc, then just stand up and jump in. There was plenty of space on the deck for 4-6 divers to kit up at once with storage space for gear and a compressor below the deck.

White Island is an active volcano 48km offshore. Craters and fumaroles continually emit gases – mostly steam, carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide. These can be viewed both from the surface and by snorkelling or diving over them. In spite of it being an apparently hostile environment, the volcano attracts large numbers of fish and birds – maybe because the water temperature is slightly higher? There are also interesting rock formations around the island with some steep and spectacular pinnacles surrounded by huge shoals of fish.

We boarded Waverley in Tauranga to save us a longer drive, but this meant longer sailing to White Island than from the usual port of departure, Whakatane. Brian got up early to set sail at 4am while we were all still asleep. Some people didn’t stay asleep for long as this was a rough crossing. Sheryll was ready with toast and hot drinks for those who could still eat. The catering was wonderful and food was ready just when we needed it – luxury! She even caught and cooked fresh fish for everyone who wanted them on Saturday night. In New Zealand diving is strongly connected with fishing and when I tell people that I’ve been diving, they ask what I’ve caught. This takes a bit of getting used to for me as a vegetarian – as well as having had the “Take only photos, leave only bubbles” stuff in the UK. Almost everyone takes a catch bag when they go diving here, unless they’re in a Marine Reserve of course.

We started diving at about noon on Saturday on Volkner Rocks and then went on to Laison’s Reef, both to the north west of White Island. These sites both have deep diving possibilities (50m in my case) for the more experienced divers and shallower sites higher up the rocks. There was plenty of fish life including shoals of maomao (blue ones above 20m and pink below), demoiselles and also marble fish, blue cod, snappers, yellow and marble moray eels. Plenty of the familiar kelp too, as well as urchins and starfish. To compare it with British diving, the visibility is better (15m even after the big swell – usually 40m), the fish are more plentiful and brightly coloured as is the invertebrate life. Water temperature was between 20 and 22 degrees C.

On Sunday after a leisurely breakfast, we dived Club Rocks (see photo) close to White Island. This was quite a drift with visibility up to 20m and a moray eel swimming in and out of the weed as well as shoals of kahawai, demoiselles and some moki. Brian then sailed around White Island to give us views of the smoking craters (see photo) before a much calmer trip back to Tauranga. We stopped by Motiti island on the way back to dive the wreck of WW2 tugboat, the Taioma. This was purpose-sunk as a dive site in 2000 and is already covered in brightly coloured growth and home to many fish. The visibility is only about 10m and the Taioma sits between depths of 20 – 28m. We enjoyed this dive and the chance to swim up the funnel as well as turning the large ship’s wheel on the open bridge.

We arrived back in Tauranga before 6pm after a great weekend of diving with our experienced and hospitable skippers (bsgordon@xtra.co.nz). We were the only dive boat at White Island that weekend that we saw, so no diver soup here!

Catherine Corcoran OWI 3016

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