Dive Report, West Te Haruhi Bay

28 May
Waves 0.3
High Tide 1pm
No current
Wind from the north but this bay was sheltered
Vis 3-4m
90 minutes
Max depth 3m
Two wetsuits, hood, gloves, not cold, moving slow

Shallow dive with @Jordi_NZ to explore the reef west of Te Haruhi Bay in Shakespear Regional Park. We decided on the Western reef because it was closer and the Eastern reef had fishers on and off the rocks. We put all our gear on in the carpark and walked 150m to the waters edge (this was hard work but we could be gone a bit further without a break) entering the water around 12:15 (slack tide).

We swam over large patches of Neptunes necklace and Seagrass the later were sometimes raised up to 25cm above the seafloor. The raised edges of rock slowly grew in height as we swam SSE out of the bay. With the increase in size of these edges came more habitat complexity starting with denser and more diverse coralline algae, other species of brown kelp and one Caulerpa geminata.

I found the odd kina hiding under ledges. Mediterranean Fanworm, Eleven-armed and cushion sea stars were abundant. Several large Actiniid Sea Anemones were a treat to see. Closer to 3m I saw a few Aaptos sponges, for some reason a few of them were covered in gunk and I cleaned them off. We saw many nudibranch, the mostly lemon, some black and the odd gem. Jordi was pleased to find a very large White-speckled Seahare. Common triplefin were abundant and I saw the odd spotty. A large school of parore on the point added a lot of energy to the dive. I was also pleased to see a single green-lipped mussel on the way back.

Jordi retrieved just one breakaway sinker and I saw no fishing rubbish.

Posted on May 27, 2023 08:35 PM by shaun-lee