Auckland Global Dive
DESCRIPTION
Dive Site review – Anna Clague
This dive site is a firm favourite of mine and the rest of our dive team. This site can be dived any day of the week and is best dived in daylight hours.
Entry techniques can vary but most common is the front door by a giant stride. Once you have entered the site you will be rewarded with a fantastic cheery welcome from the resident shop staff. These resident staff will quite often hover around you whilst you enjoy the site and can be quite engaging if given the opportunity. A little enticement with cups of tea and muffins has been known to produce some amazing interactions with these charming critters.
Immediately upon entering the site you will see a side entrance branching off to your right. This should only be entered by those with the correct training and experience as this side passage will very quickly open up into an Aladdin’s cave of tanks majestically rising from the floor in every direction. Every shape size and colour of cylinder can be found here with blooms happening at the end of spring and continuing on into the summer months. Caution is needed here as gas pockets can accumulate within certain tanks which need careful handling to avoid problems.
If you are not trained for this side passage then the best way to enjoy this dive, when entering from the front door, is to head off in a Southerly direction. Make your way through the gap between the Fourth Element stand and the wall on your right shoulder. The wall is populated by an array for spongy hoods and gloves and you will see a seasonal bloom of cylinders here in the late spring and early summer. Continue to keep the wall on your right shoulder; the view will now open up into a forest of exposure suits. Feel free to forage down amongst the suits to uncover the array of dive bags nestled in underneath them. Don’t forget every now and then to look off over your left shoulder to take in the magnificent schooling undergarments silhouetted by the light from the shop entrance.
Eventually the suits will start to thin out to just 3mm and it’s towards the end of these that you will find an enclosed bay like area which is full of schooling dive gear from the sleek tapering dive fins and snorkels to the translucent masks and swim goggles with their individual colourful outlines.
When you are ready to head off from this bay put the wall on your right shoulder again and you can take a slow cruise past the Tech Dive Equipment. This area is worth visiting again as a dive on its own!
Next to this wall is a series of guts that house the accessory walls. Here you will find a world of macro features to immerse yourself in. Shiny clips and buckles, a plethora of small rubbery mouthpieces, camouflaging mesh’s and mimic multihangers that can change their shape to suit their surroundings. At this stage you will start to see column like cabinets rising from the floor filled with beautiful jewel-like dive computers and shimmering dive torches. Encrusting the rails you will find BCD’s and Regulators. Keep your eyes peeled for the sharp package deals that are hiding in amongst these. You should take your time moving past here as there is so much detail to take in, and the slower you go the more you will see!!
When you are ready to move off from here you can drift through more cabinets which house a glittering array of small and large dive knives, and the cameras, strobes and underwater photography accessories nestled into the cracks here make for great photo opportunities. This is the best place to manage your safety stop. You will be hard pressed to find any diver who only does the obligatory 3 minutes especially as the resident dive staff tend to hang out in this area enjoying the tinkling sound of the till.
