White Island Trip Report by Ali Perkins

How do you sum up eleven dives over three days for a trip report? Quite simply, you can’t. So instead, I thought I’d share with you a moment from one of my favourite dives of the trip, some random statistics from my dive computer, and of course, a selection of my photos. Hopefully, you can build your own picture in your mind of what White Island is all about.

Homestead Reef

I’m floating on the edge of a kelp-covered precipice. Behind me is the safety of the rocky reef. Below me it is dark and murky. A jumble of giant boulders create ominous shadows and sombre crevices. Yet I’ve finned into the fish equivalent of New York City.

All around me swarm schools of Pink maomao, Blue maomao and Demoiselles. The schools are large, but they don’t swim around in direction-less circles. It is as if the fish are following underwater highways that I can’t see, zooming along them to reach their destination. Usually when I’m scuba diving, I feel like I’ve slipped into another world, and am accepted onto the reef, a cumbersome fish though I am. Today I don’t feel this way at all. Pink and Blue maomao are stopping to look me. They have bemused expressions on their faces. They don’t know what I am or what I’m doing here and for the most part they don’t care. I feel small, and unimportant. I don’t belong here, I’m not part of this gang.

So I sit back, and observe. I’m watching the action on one of the fishiest reefs I’ve ever had the pleasure of diving. Demoiselles, dainty grey fish with two white spots, dart about, gulping up food from the water. Leatherjackets vigorously attack a defenseless gelatinous salp.

I notice a change in the fish. It is subtle at first, then obvious. It’s like someone has flicked the dial towards fast forward and everything is speeding up. The fish are on caffeine. Demoiselles and Blue maomao stream towards me, headed for the reef. Pink maomao race by. I sense a presence, a shadow. Looking up, I see them. Kingfish. They are the lions of this jungle, a powerful predatory fish that eats other fish. They’re in charge, the local mafia, and all the inhabitants of the reef know it. Even when they’re swimming slowly, you can sense the power of these fish. They’re pure muscle and I’m drooling through my regulator.

The Kingfish circle lazily above, while around me fish cower in the reef. Then they depart and it is as if the sun has come out after a brief thunderstorm. The mood of the reef lightens, the fish flood back out, and once again, the Demoiselles dance around gulping up tiny morsels.

When people ask me what my favourite dive site is, I feel lost for words. There are so many amazing sites, how can I pick just one? Now I’ve found it…Homestead Reef. It’s the site where I feel least at home, least welcomed. But I wasn’t made to live underwater, so I guess I’ll just have to live with that.

~~:~~

Peter, David, Leah, Sam, Cameron and I travelled to White Island on the Ma Cherie (operated by John Baker of Baker Marine Charters), with skipper Chris and deckhand Kane. We motored out of Whakatane on the morning of Friday 21st November and returned after living out at White Island for two nights, on Sunday 23rd November. Here are some statistics from the trip:

View the photo gallery from the trip.

I shot quite a lot of video footage with my camera during the trip. My plan is to edit it all into a video clip and upload it to youtube but this will take me some time, so you’ll just have to stay tuned…

Filed under: Ali Perkins, Diving New Zealand, Trip Reports