This past week I was lucky enough to get myself on a dive trip to Doubtful Sound. We needed to collect some invertebrates to be used for teaching in the second semester. The trip was planned to coincide with a fourth-year field course in Doubtful Sound, so three of our research vessels were already over there, along with 30 odd postgraduate students investigating the oceanography of the fiord ecosystem. We stayed in the deep cove hostel, where the university also has a research field base, complete with a boat and field truck.
Deep Cove Hostel
The evening before Dave and I were due to drive over from Dunedin, a large snow system passed over Otago and Southland blanketing the south in snow. We set off early morning to give us plenty of time to make our ferry across Lake Manapouri at 2:30PM. It was the most scenic I have ever seen in the south (made more so since I did none of the driving; sorry Dave….). The one thing on our minds on the way over, was that although we might make it to the far side of Manapouri, there was a chance that the Wilmot Pass might be closed due to snow. As there is no cellphone reception in Doubtful Sound, we were unable to touch base with our team until we had reached Manapouri.
Lake Manapouri wharf
After a slow trip over through the snow, luckily we were informed us the pass was open and we boarded our boat (whilst still crossing our fingers that someone remembered to pick us up on the other side). The boat ride across the lake was beautiful with all the snow down close to the lake, however, I began questioning my decision to be diving rather than snowboarding in these particular conditions…
Thank goodness Sean was waiting for us on the other side, and we began the final part of our journey over to Doubtful Sound! The Wilmot Pass was heavily covered in snow, looking every part of a winter wonderland. Finally, after 7 hours of travel, we reached the lookout point over our home for the next two nights. We spent the evening catching up with the marine science staff and meeting new students, getting excited about our diving the next day.
Driving over the Wilmot Pass – thank god I was not driving (thanks Sean for keeping us on the road)
The view from the top! Looking down Doubtful Sound – beautiful but chilly!
The aim for the morning was to visit three different sites to target various species. We loaded up and tested our dive gear, and launched the mighty Typhoon, our dive vessel for the day. We had a dive team of three with John as our skipper. Conditions were perfect! No wind or swell – perfect conditions! Not to mention due to the lack of rain the past few weeks, visibility was likely to be at a high. All we needed was it to be a few degrees warmer… I was rocking a 7mm semi-dry suit, although a dry suit would probably have been more suited to the conditions!
Boating out from Deep Cove for our first dive
First dive was down Hall Arm, along a steep rock wall covered in white sea urchins. This was my first ever dive in Fiordland, so I was buzzing. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Doubtful Sound ecosystem, the fiord water is divided in two parts – a ~3 metre freshwater layer, and clear seawater below. The high rainfall in fiordland, coupled with the hydroelectric power plant input a large volume of freshwater, creating a permanent, murky freshwater layer. This creates a dark environment in relatively shallow waters, allowing a range of interesting, mostly deeper water species to thrive.
Thus, on diving into the water you enter through a dark murky layer, where the salt and freshwater mixing creates strange patterns in the water. But, once you break through the freshwater, the visibility opens up to 15-20 meters in a strange, dark land. My first black coral! This stunning coral occurs quite shallow (10 meters and below) in the Fiordland thanks to the darker conditions with the tannin-rich freshwater layer. Diving in the clear water along such deep walls requires careful buoyancy control and dive planning, as it is easy to not realize how deep you can get! In the waters around Dunedin, 20 meters is very dark and torches are required, however here the water is so clear you feel like your only at 10.
Chief bucket holder
Postdive we traveled back to Deep Cove to drop off the animals and change tanks to head further out into the fiord. Next, we boated up to Tricky Cove, a sheltered deep rock wall. The steep wall is covered in brachiopods, a living fossil, which began life over 500 million years ago. These fascinating animals create a beautiful habitat where triplefins and other small marine life flourish. Along this wall was also large beautiful black coral, sea cucumbers, sponges, whelks (most likely feeding on the brachiopods), anemones, and tube worms. This was a stunning dive with crystal clear water. I managed to grab a few photos whilst balancing collection buckets.
Stunning clear water and black coral!
Colours of the wall – brachiopods and whelks
Inquisitive triplefin
Such beautiful colours on the wall – it was hard to focus on the job at hand!
During our surface interval, we zipped down to our final dive site at Espinosa Point. We parked the boat up at the Blanket Bay Hotel, to sit in the sun away from the sandflies to warm up. We cracked out the cookies and the fishing rod, to try our luck picking up some butterfly perch for the aquarium. Unfortunately, we hit spotty central, with no luck on the perch front. I hung above water for the last dive after finally regaining feeling in my limbs (the other lucky buggers had dry suits) and enjoyed the sun and scenic views.
Mountain reflections
Lunchtime coffee at the hotel?
Lunch views aren’t terrible
Post dive as we were heading back to shore, we came across someone swimming across the fiord…. A weka! Making his swim for the other side we decided to give him a ride. The weka jumped aboard and we dropped it off to a sunny spot to dry off and warm up! After that adventure, we headed back to store the animals for the night, where we showered, warmed up and decompressed before traveling back home over the pass the next day. An awesome trip made better with the great company of the marine science staff! Doubtful Sound I will be back sometime for a much longer dive trip!
Doubtful Sound Diving This past week I was lucky enough to get myself on a dive trip to Doubtful Sound.