Shorelines: Underwater journey is 'sweet as'

By COLIN MOORE

Sweet as, or "Choice bro". Others might describe the diving at Motiti Island near Tauranga as "awesome" or "cool", but the patois of this odd quartet from Rotorua is probably more appropriate.

The bros, on a diving instructor's course with Adventure Education, are on their first ocean dive, and the contrast of the island's reefs with what they have seen underwater in the lakes of Rotorua has them grinning as sweet as.

There are kina, and snapper and far more things on this rocky, underwater foreshore than they can find the words for. But "sweet as" will do just nicely.

The low-lying island off the Bay of Plenty coast, 23km from Tauranga Harbour, has a sweet and sour history. Sweet because its rich, rolling, easily worked soil is ideal for crops and the surrounding seabed is a piscatorial nursery, with crayfish hiding in chest-deep water and hapuka barely more than a surf-rod cast offshore.

But sour, too, because of centuries of covetous claims for such a food basket. If any land-ownership tensions remain, the only sign of them anchored out here is on a board nailed to a pohutukawa tree, which looks suspiciously like it might read "trespassers will be prosecuted" or such like.

I hitchhiked a ride on MV Catalyst with the bros and skipper Brent Cross, to dive Motiti Island and, in particular, the sunken wreck of the 30m tug Taioma.

Cross, a former Christchurch greenkeeper, runs Catalyst, a 13m aluminium catamaran, in partnership with his brother, operating diving and fishing charters from the Three Kings to the Ranfurly Bank.

It is one of about 80 charter boats working the rich waters of the Bay of Plenty from the Port of Tauranga.

I am always threatening to give scuba diving away until I go out on a boat like the Catalyst with heaps of room to kit up in comfort and a broad stern diving platform to step off when you are ready.

And the reward for joining these dive students on a day of their course is that I get to dive on the Taioma under the guidance of their instructor Damian Green, who is a pretty "sweet as" character and patient dive master.

The Taioma was scuttled off Motiti in November 2000 after some sterling work by the Taioma Reef Society.

Not everyone wanted the 310-tonne hulk sitting on the seabed but there it rests on the sand, away from disputed areas, carefully sitting upright with a large red buoy to mark its presence.

The buoy and its chain are another reason for enjoying a dive such as this if you haven't been underwater for a year or more.

They mean you can descend slowly and equalise pressure even when your body is as rusty as the chain you grip.

When we settle on the bottom the depth gauge reads 28m and now, comfortably equalised, I give Green the okay signal and take in my surroundings.

As the dark hull of the Taioma looms above me the first impression is of being in a film set, some nameless, hazily recollected documentary of sunken warships, the Titanic or some shadowy vessel.

And it is an impression that lingers because there is an eerie, magical feeling swimming around this sunken hulk that is a world away from clambering over a rusting wreck beached on the foreshore somewhere.

Green guides me first to the foredeck. Taioma has been underwater for little more than a year but already marine growth has begun to colonise the intrusion.

Purple and bright yellow anemones cling to stanchions. Green motions me to peer down a small funnel in which a crayfish has made its home.

The wheelhouse no longer contains the original wheel. That was sold at auction to help to raise funds for the sinking but it has been replaced by another wheel, which I grip and turn, staring through the glassless windows as dozens of baby snapper and leatherjackets swim by inquisitively.

Another impression intrudes: the pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland, except this is real, not an imaginary trip underwater.

With growing confidence, we swim into the engine room. One wall, which has been fitted with pipes to attract crayfish, looks like a musty wine cellar. Barnacles and fan worms have staked first claim to the artificial homes.

A wrasse in rainbow-coloured stripes lights up the darkest recesses of the hull. When we emerge our presence seems to have attracted greater hordes of juvenile snapper, leatherjackets and small reef fish.

It is early days in the colonisation of the hulk but already this is a magical underwater journey.

When I surface and clamber back on board the Catalyst the bros, who for the present must dive shallower water, ask how it was.

There is only one answer. Wreck diving? Sweet as.

* Crosscat Charters, ph (07) 544 2374

* Tauranga Underwater Centre, ph (07) 571 5286

* Tauranga Visitor Centre, (07) 578 8103

Email: trgvin@tauranga.govt.nz

* Adventure Education

*Environment Bay of Plenty

* Email: colinmoore@xtra.co.nz