8am. When I’m weeding, I wake up to the birds – and the vicious sandflies. That it takes 10,000 bites to become immune is a downright lie, I can tell you that much. We make a plan for the day and begin to gear up! I hoist on my drysuit and check my tank and regulators before hauling them onto my back. I slip in my weight pockets, check in with my colleagues and then – fins and mask finally on – I jump into the water and go under with two other divers and a whole lot of catch bags.
Undaria, more commonly known as wakame, is the equivalent of the gorse of the ocean. Having come into New Zealand on the hull of an international vessel, it has spread and taken over native species. My job is to hold the line – to push it back so it doesn’t take over the unique, diverse marine world that is Fiordland. We remove hundreds of kilos in a dive.
When your head is buried in weed all day, you have to remind yourself to take a breath and look up. I’m ticking other people’s bucket lists by diving in Fiordland for a job. I talk to the blue cod and growl at the endless tyrannical antics of the girdled wrasse fish. I shake hands with the octopus, sing to my colleagues and boogie. You read that correctly: damn straight, I have underwater boogie sessions – and, yes, fifty per cent of my boogie sessions may be because I desperately have to pee and drysuits are unforgiving in that area!
12:30pm. Lunch is around now. I jump fifty-minute dives, four times a day. We rotate with a second team once we are on the surface again. They usually start where we finish and I either get a nice fifty-minute surface interval with a hot drink or I am the safety diver on the tender and watch bubbles and haul up catch bags stuffed with weed. It’s during these moments I get to really see Fiordland: the trees, the birds, the tawaki gathered on the rocks getting ready to plunge, the rātā starting to bloom, the thickness of the murky freshwater layer or the clarity of the turquoise sea.
6pm. At the end of the day, we share stories of our highlights – the cool fish we saw underwater or the strange creature we are trying to identify. We play board games and card games to pass the evenings. I read books and scheme up all the adventures I will do once I’m back on land. You become a weird family in an environment like this – my colleagues are all I have, day in and day out, confined to a boat with only each other.
9:30pm. Before I eventually go to sleep, I wait until everyone has gone to bed and I take a moment with the silence to just be. I do some stretches and some exercises. Then I close my eyes and get ready to do it all again tomorrow. It will all be different, but the same. And that keeps me coming back for more.
Glossary. Rātā, large native forest tree with gnarled and twisted trunks and crimson flowers. Tawaki, Fiordland crested penguin.
This story appeared in the Ngahuru Autumn 2023 Edition of Shepherdess.
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