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Jimmy's Black Coral Reef
Jim Hope, old salt skipper of
Taranui probalbly knows the Aldermen
Islands and surrounding area as well as anyone. During his travels
he's noticed many un-charted blips on his sounder which indicate little
known reefs. One of these, a tiny rocky outcrop, rises just a few metres
up from an otherwise featureless sandy bottom between the Aldermen Islands
and the mainland New Zealand coast.
Jewel anemonies (Corynactis haddoni) on dead coral branch, yellow finger sponge and blue maomao
Photo courtesy Neil Walker
I'd attempted to dive on this reef on a previous trip on Taranui. On that day we had perhaps 20 knots
of wind, a metre of swell and significant current below the surface. Under
these conditions our descent down the shot line was less than comfortable,
particularly when faced with having to swim for some distance at depth
into the current.
When we reached the anchor it was sitting on the sand and had obviously
been dragged away from the reef by the current. I swam out across the
sand into the current but the exertion was swamping my brain with nitrogen
and I was soon forced to turn back and begin my ascent to surface.
One of the larger Black Coral (Antipathes sp.) trees on the reef.
Photo courtesy Neil Walker
My next attempt to visit to the reef was under much better conditions.
With little current, swimming down to the reef was effortless. As we reached about
35 metres the bright sunlight and clear water allowed us our first glimpse
of the reef below. The grapnel had again pulled out onto the sand but
this time was only metres away from the reef. We swam along a finger
of rocks which extended towards the highest point of the reef - only
about 4 metres above the sand.
From some distance we could see the white branches of the coral trees
at centre of the reef. The two largest trees, perhaps 1.8 metres across
were located on opposite sides of a small gut between two large rocks.
Soon, we were inspecting the trees closely. Snake stars coiled themselves
around the branches and fish sheltered in between them. Several dead
branches were encrusted with clumps of beatuiful pink jewel anemonies.
Coral tree branch
Photo courtesy Neil Walker
I was no doubt heavily under the
influence of nitrogen but with the easy dive down, good visibility
and brightly lit conditions, I made a relaxed tour of the reef touching
down on the sand at 52 metres and then inspecting 4 or 5 smaller coral
trees before returning to the bigger trees. The reef seemed a small
island of rock, plonked on an otherwise featureless white sandy bottom.
After 13 minutes dive time my computer was indicating the need for several
minutes of decompression and it was time to farewell the reef. We had
one last look at the ghostly white branches of the coral trees before
swimming back out along the rocky finger towards the shot line. Two
carpet sharks provided a momentary source of amusement as we disturbed
them from their rest amongst the rocks before heading for the shot line.
Yellow, black and striped Snake Stars (Astrobrachion constrictum) curled
tightly around a black coral branches
Photo courtesy Neil Walker
The decompression in little or no current was effortless and before long we were back
onboard Taranui, talking excitedly about the dive and planning trips
to deeper reefs in search of bigger trees.
Link to 2007 dive on Jimmy's Black Coral Reef.
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