Matauri Bay was amazing! It was so nice to get out with the Auckland Uni Dive Club- I love all of those people. I hung out with a lot of friends I’ve met on other dive trips and made a few new friends as well. Everyone is so relaxed and chill- perfect for weekend diving! We got to Matauri Bay on Friday at around 1 pm, then Dave and I headed into the water for two shore dives. I guess I should have given a better description of Dave because I know you are all wondering- he goes to UConn with me but he’s studying in Leeds, United Kingdom for this year (he’ll be back in the U.S. in May). We’re 100% just friends and dive buddies. I’m really glad he came out to New Zealand, so that I’d have a dive buddy I knew and trusted. Plus, diving here is amazing! So we did the two shore dives on Friday, where on the first dive I saw my first octopus EVER! Not only did I see one, I saw three!! Two were about the size of your hand and the third was a lot bigger, with tentacles longer than my arm. They hide in cracks in rocks and caves, and it takes a bit of coaxing to get them to come out. Dave was tapping his dive knife on the rock and got the octopus to come out and grab it! Unfortunately, we told the spearfishers about the octopus and they went in the water and caught it, cut off its head and cooked it up. Apparently you have to cook an octopus for a couple of hours, leave it overnight to tenderize, and then it’s all set to eat. (Look for the three different octopus in the pictures)
Yesterday we dove the Rainbow Warrior shipwreck and then Teapot Island, which is an island that looks just like a teapot. The Rainbow Warrior was a Greenpeace ship sunk by the French navy, because Greenpeace was protesting the French using beautiful remote tropical islands to test nuclear weapons and bombs and things. There’s a huge memorial statue at the top of the hill right by the campsite (you can see it in one of the pictures). Teapot Island was cool because there were dolphins around the boat right until we were about to get into the water, and then they left. We didn’t get to swim with them but it was neat to see them so close. There were also tons of blue mao mao, two spot demoiselles, and kingfish. Kingfish are what the spearfishers go after (in addition to snapper, marlin, and goatfish) and we ended up eating grilled kingfish for dinner. The meat is white and flaky like swordfish, and kingfish can grow to be over 3 feet long. Last night we had a bit of a cider drinking competition (called scrumpy hands if you know what that is). I won out of all of the girls playing but realized that I never again wish to drink that amount of cider (1.25 liters) so quickly.
I got a ride back to Auckland today so I can start getting my homework all sorted out (I have two big labs and a test this week) and Dave stayed up at Matauri Bay with the club for another day with the van. Tomorrow I also have to figure out if I’m going to exchange this computer or not. Last night the Easter bunny came around to all of the dive club’s tents and cars and left us chocolate eggs. Happy Easter!
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