Adventure Magazine

Left to right: Historic sink plundered from the wreck of the Waikare, recovered by our team in Luncheon Cove.
Rob Edward - James Croker and Eddie Howard descend to the black coral.
Some of the 40 batteries recovered
Opposite page: Stuart Day and Rob Wilson clear their safety stop and prepare to ascend after the tyres they have sent to the surface.
Now fast forward to 2021 now our third
visit to Dusky, the dive team suit up into
their drysuits and Halcyon kit, ready
to dive in this incredibly exclusive and
isolated location. In all honesty I was not
expecting what we usually encounter
with our typical Ghost Diving dives or
when we dive for Project Baseline Clyde
Quay. Surprisingly enough, the sight I
saw was not so dissimilar!
Bubbles roared from the exhaust tee
of my Halo as I descended through the
tannin rich water, scanning left and right
I saw two Seven-Gill Sharks come up
out of the depths to welcome our team to
the area, it was wonderful. Sadly though,
within minutes I scootered over a huge
pile of car batteries, initially I estimated
at least 20. The actual amount once
we dug them out of the seabed was
horrifying at 40! (1000kgs of car batteries
alone.) We knew we had our work cut
out for us....
Freedivers and technical divers
working in harmony
Since the launch of Ghost Diving here in
NZ, I have constantly seen the value of
working with highly skilled freedivers and
this project again proved their invaluable
support.
Throughout this annual project, we have
been working side by side with some
incredible free-divers and they are truly
amazing. The one item we find by the
mountain is long neck beer bottles –
there were literally 1000s.
Both Scuba and Free teams haul beer
bottle after beer bottle filling giant canvas
bags to be removed in one hit with our
lift bags. We have even found multiple
anchors over the last three years and
they had snared everything from fishing
lines to ropes of various flavours.
One of the items as irony has it, to be
discovered was as I surged home to the
vessel on my DPV (Dive Xtras scooter),
I noticed an odd circular shape on the
sea bed. The circle was no more than an
inch across, but after years of doing this,
I have an uncanny eye for the uncanny!
Descending back to the sea floor I began
clawing at the edges of this bizarre
looking object. To my surprise, it was
another sink! (We found another one on
our first trip in 2019.)
We had literally found everything
including the kitchen sink and as soon
as I saw the Union Steamship logo, I
knew again it was something interesting.
In actual fact, this sink had a surprising
significance.
We had literally found everything
including the kitchen sink
This particular sink as had the previous
one from 2019 had been plundered and
then dumped from a nearby wreck of a
vessel called the 'Waikare' a steamship
that had struck an uncharted rock
between Indian island and Passage Inlet
in 1910 before beaching on Stop Island
for the passengers to safely disembark.
The skipper Sean and Maria recognised
the sink and its significance straight
away - again showing their intimate
knowledge of this area. Maria and Sean
without hesitation got this historic sink off
to a local maritime museum where the
sink is now proudly on display.
The teams worked in amazing cohesion
for the time we had in the darkened
water. A grand total of over 5000kgs was
removed from this amazing area, most of
which was thrown from visiting vessels.
And at the end of the project the Pure
Salt team spoiled us with a dive to see
the majestic black coral
Tamatea/Dusky Sound of course is world
famous for its black coral some of which
we found in 11m of water and any diver
will tell you that is incredible as it is as
a deep water species. At the end of the
project, the Pure Salt team spoiled us
with a dive to see this majestic black
coral in 25-29m of water.
Something rare and fascinating grows
in the depths of Milford Sound – black
coral. Known as antipathes fiordensis,
this black coral is native to the Fiordland
area. Black coral usually lives in deep
ocean but thanks to the geology of
Milford Sound, you can see black coral
as shallow as 10 metres below the
surface.
As heavy rainfall drains through the lush
forests, it gets stained with tannins until
that is the colour of strong tea. Because
fresh water is less dense than salt water,
the rainwater forms a protective top layer
over the salt water from the incoming
Tasman Sea. The darkened fresh water
blocks sunlight, with light levels at 10m
deep in Milford Sound being equivalent
to those at about 70m in the open sea.
Due to this unique environment, the fiord
supports the world’s biggest population
of black coral trees.
There are 60 varieties of black coral in
Dusky Sound and it is also home to rare
red corals and the enormous bubblegum
coral, which can grow up to seven
metres high and live for centuries. There
are about seven million colonies of coral
in Dusky Sound.
A truly magnificent location and an
incredibly valuable project.
The initial success of our first project in
2019 was the first stepping stone for the
now annual Tamatea Blue Project with
the crew of Pure Salt. Some of my teams
are joining me again and some gutsy
volunteers and battle tested freedivers
to again make a difference to this once
pristine environment.
We will endeavour to return this magical
place to its true majesty before the onset
of those before us.
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