Claire was fortunate to attend Dr Jane Goodall’s presentation in Wellington as part of her 80th celebrations. Dr Jane Goodall started with a series of hoots, highlights of her childhood and of her dreams of working in Africa. Finally after meeting and work with Louis Leakey, Jane started her now famous research of the Chimpanzees […]
General Interest
Diving and all things related to the ocean
PADI Instructor Development Update
Even as Instructors we need to continually refresh and update our skills. So Monday finally saw Claire on a flight to Auckland (after several delays and a wind induced flight cancellation the night before) She headed across town to the Newmarket Pool to catch up with Colin Melrose, PADI’s Instructor Development Manager and a dozen […]
Good News – Bad News
The good news… Paddy has been working hard towards his PADI Staff Instructor rating and should be recognised for his great achievement – Congratulations Paddy! He can now use his knowledge and experience to teach others how to teach others to dive. The bad news… Paddy ihas left us and headed overseas on that great […]
Matiu/Somes Island 2014
The forecast for this year’s trip was definitely not the best but Jo, the DoC Ranger at Matiu/Somes had a cunning plan to get us diving the southern end of the island – a usually inaccessible dive site. We were keen! 16club members, both divers and non-divers, headed across on the ferry and after going […]
24 Hour Dive Challenge
Like so many great ideas the journey towards this year’s 24 Hour Dive Challenge was decided of a few pints. At the end of last year’s pack up Claire, Brian, Stuart and I celebrated with a drink and decided there and then that this should be an annual event. Slowly the wheels began to turn […]
Halloween Dive 2013
This time last year one of our divers sent us this link… And so inspired this year’s Halloween theme – Underwater Pumpkin Carving There were a lot of predive issues to consider… What size/shape/colour of pumpkin do I want? Do pumpkins float? (Yes) What tools do I need? (Dive knives worked well as did a […]
NZ Shark Week
As part of NZ Shark Week Te Papa hosted some free presentations from our leading shark experts. We were initially given an overview of sharks – what are they, how are they identified and who are their close relatives? New Zealand has ~110 shark species, ~70 rays and ~ 12 chimeras (ghost sharks). The exact […]
The Mary Rose
Recently in the news with a new purpose built museum in Portsmouth, England; the Mary Rose is an amazing time capsule of its time.< Built for King Henry VIII between 1509-1511 she sunk during a battle with French in 1545. King Henry VIII watched his ship sink in Portsmouth Harbour in 14m of water from […]