Dive Report, Zig Zag Reef, Long Bay
4 June 2023
High tide 7:30am
Calm, overcast
10 or so knots the day before but westerly, 4-5 knots during dive also westerly
With @jordi_nz
-36.6791667
174.7544444
8.9m
57 minutes
Arrived at the park (in the dark) when the gates opened at 6am. It took me an hour to get my gear on / ready with lots of trips to the beach. We left the beach with the sun just rising, waves were only 30cm or so. Light breeze. I led on kayak with Garmin InReach for co-ordinates. Jordi followed with BCD and tank on his paddle board!
We anchored 20m east of the reef and it took us 15 minutes to find the balls. Jordi saw them first as we were searching in a spiral from where we thought they were. Visibility was 3-4m with lots of strands of phytoplankton mucus in the water. While looking I saw many snapper and a school of large jack mackerel, neither of which liked having my bright lights pointed at them.
The reef looked similar to January (good given the storms) but much more cinematic in the low light. I saw spotty, sweep, juvenile goatfish and juvenile snapper but the fish were all wary of me. The only one that stayed still for a photo was the crested blenny. The most interesting find for me was the tubular hydroids (I think) which I haven't seen before. I was disappointed with the amount of silt on the sponges but impressed with how clean the ascidians (Synoicum kuranui) we in comparison. The tiny amount of swell was still enough to make manual focus difficult, I had another go at the many crimson jellyfish but they elude me.
Two groups of people wanted to talk to us back on the beach, they asked us what we were catching and we had to explain that its a marine reserve. This is not the first time I have been asked that on this beach, I'm surprised by the lack of awareness.
