Dive Right In with Gwyn Brown from Tauranga Dive

About 15 years ago a group of mates and myself got very keen on the idea of drift diving. This is where you dive in an area that has a lot of current and you basically do the superman thing, but under the water. It's a heck of a lot of fun.

Now this was all before those unfortunate people lost their lives in the Marlborough Sounds a few years back, when they got caught in the very fierce currents that inhabit that area and ended up well past 50 metres, which for recreational divers means very bad news if you don't have extra air for decompressing.

So off we trekked around the Mount to the little beach that looks out on the entrance, the one where you can just about touch the cruise ships as they go about their business of entertaining the blue rinse crowd. Of course when trekking for a drift dive you have to carry everything in and then dive with it back unless you have someone that will carry your running shoes etc back to the car. We didn't. Hiking around the Mount in full dive gear may not be one of the silliest things I have done, but it was probably the hottest.

Pro tip here for anyone else wanting to follow in our footsteps. Put your wetsuit on after arriving at the beach. This may seem obvious, but when you are carrying all your dive gear it seemed like a good idea to at least wear as much as possible. Bloody things should be called sweat suits. Another good idea is to dive on an incoming tide, at least we got that one right. It's a long way to Chile.

Entering the water, our plan was to stick together and stay close to the bottom, which as it comes around into Pilot Bay goes from 30 metres just off the beach up to a shallow 10 metres past Tangaroa. A safe dive in anyone's book. And we were looking forward very much to seeing reef covered rocks and sand that we could zoom past, bearing in mind that unlike Superman we were just ordinary men, and one woman. And would likely shatter upon impact, hence while my superman pose did consist of fists of steel out in front; it was more to ward off splatter-like contact with the bottom than to aid in any aerodynamics, or in fact hydrodynamics. I even practised it on the beach, true story.

Heading into the cool waters after sweating like a haemophiliac flea hunting a Saint Bernard was bliss. Exactly as much bliss as getting into a hot, hot spa pool on a cold, cold night, only exactly different.

The current at the entrance can head past five knots when it gets up and going, and it was. The idea of flying like Superman under the water worked only too well and we were soon flying over sandy slopes and gullies filled with wonderful piles of rotting sea lettuce. And…wait, was that a coil of large wire rope, and a tyre, and more coils of wire and a car…surely not!

But, yes, unfortunately it was. Okay, I think the car may have been a large car-shaped rock, but there was so much rubbish and hazardous waste on the bottom that even Superman would have struggles to take it all in. I know I came up at the end in Pilot Bay disgusted with my fellow humans at what has been thrown into our beautiful harbour.

Which brings me to my point!

On Sunday, October 2, the Bay's best newspaper, that would be this one, and the Mount Underwater Club, and Tauranga Dive – thanks for the plug Brian – are organising a massive clean-up of the harbour. We will need all sorts of volunteers, especially divers, to haul, tow, pull, or just plain muscle the rubbish off the bottom and into skip bins and have a jolly old fashioned clean-up. Please keep the date free and watch for more contact details coming up soon!