One of the challenges of operating in such a remote environment as Go Dive does in Port Gore, is keeping the machinery up to a reliable standard of maintenance. The salt water environment is naturally harsh and machinery maintenance is paramount to a reliable operation. What would normally be a simple repair such as a puncture or replacing brake pads, can turn into a major and expensive task.

Adrian from Tractor Spares & Repairs sorts out Fergy

Normally a major repair, like a tractor clutch replacement would be done in a well tooled, well staffed workshop. Fortunately Port Gore isn’t one of those places, thus it’s main appeal, unfortunately when things go wrong you need to deal with it the best you can. This proved to be the case recently when Fergy our tractor decided to spit the dummy big time and demand a new starter motor, a new water pump, a new trust bearing and to top it off, decided that it would only steer in straight line. All these issues happened one after another, as I had several attempts to get the beast back to Blenheim by road to Tractor Repairs and Spares in Renwick to sort out the dickey thrust bearing and clutch. Finally we decided to do the major job of splitting the tractor in half on-site. Surprisingly a job that was much easier than first thought, due to the experience and service Adrian from Tractor Spares brought with him.

Mikhail Lermontov prop

Other than the issues Fergy has presented me, we have just run a series of very successful trips over the last few weeks. In fact last weekend, which was a mainly all club member weekend, we experienced the best visibility I have seen on the wreck for over three years. Michael Keller from Christchurch completed his TDI Adv Nitrox and Deco Procedures course with Go Dive over an extended 5 day period, doing 10 dives on twins and slinging deco gas. The visibility was such on the Lermontov, that on some days you could see bow to bridge, thats well over 20m.

Next week sees Go Dive heading into our busiest November yet, with nearly back to back trips right through to December, we have a new compressor and huge air storage set up now at the Lodge and are looking forward to the settled weather Nov offers. There is still the odd day left unbooked, with space over Christchurch Show weekend still available.

Although I might be a bit busy to write regular Blogs over the next few months, I will still try to stay in touch with club members via TXT and email, for visitors I will be able to answer your messages and emails most evenings from our new improved cell coverage service in Port Gore. Tania and Sarah will be monitoring the phones during the day, for course, local and Lermontov trips.

Have a great summer.

safe diving

Brent

Congratulations to Ryan and Shupiwe who have just completed their PADI Rescue course with Lydia and Go Dive this last weekend. The course took 4 days and included theory where stress management, O2 administration and accident management was discussed in group workshops, followed by 4 open water sessions, these concluded with two accident scenarios where the students were assessed on their ability to manage a typical diving incident.

The Rescue course is without doubt a must do course for any serious diver, especially if diving in environments like we have in New Zealand where professional emergency response can be hours or even days away. The course also qualifies Dive Club Marlborough members to a greater discount on kit purchases and is a giant step closer to becoming a Club Safety Diver where you can get free diving.

Bolshoi Lounge Mikhail Lermontov. Photo courtesy of Dan Farnham

I am off to the Lermontov tomorrow for a days diving and a stay over at the Lodge, the weather today is magic with tomorrow looking to be even better. The Easter trip still has places on it and I have one spot for a club Safety Diver to come along FOC. If your keen on this trip flick me an email or call on 0800GODIVE, if you want to put your hand up for the FOC spot and help with the trip again email or call.

Have a good week and safe diving

Brent

Congratulations to Liz and Tim who just completed their PADI wreck course with me on the Lermontov. Both are from the UK and were visiting NZ to attend a friends wedding in Marlborough and then visit other parts of the country.

Over the two days of the course we completed four dives, starting off with an orientation dive along the wreck, identifying potential hazards and points of entry. This was followed by mapping exercises and an introduction to deploying a wreck reel, followed by a penetration dive through the pool and winter gardens areas.

On completion Liz and Tim commented on how this was the most enjoyable course they had completed to date and how doing it on a wreck like the Lermontov was so educational. Thanks Liz and Tim for training with Go Dive.

In my last blog Guy wrote a piece on his artifact recovery from the wreck. Collecting artifacts from the wreck is done in a very controlled manner and we only encourage those with the correct training and equipment to attempt this. Go Dive also has a voluntary exclusion zone on where artifacts can be collected from, discouraging collection from  the recreational diving zone.

Guy and his treasures collected from the Lermontov

For those keen on wreck diving doing the wreck course, followed by the Adv Wreck course can be very rewarding and teach skills you just won’t get during normal recreational courses.

Safe diving

Brent

I have just returned from another great 3 days out at the Lodge where we lucked out again with perfect weather conditions. Unfortunately it’s a bit colder today, hence the time to write a blog and let you know whats up.

Conditions have been holding up exceptionally well on the wreck, with vis inside the wreck over the last few days still up-wards of 15 metres plus. Aaron and Dean were down from the Dive Shack in Auckland and started to really penetrate areas they hadn’t been to before including the kitchens and scullery. During their dives they discovered previously undiscovered areas that contained some really nice artefact’s, off which were selectively recovered following Go Dives artifact recovery edict. Thanks guy’s for your conservative approach to the collecting of these nice pieces.

CHECK OUT AARONS TRIP REPORT AND VIDEO ON THE DIVE SHACK SITE WWW.DIVESHACK.CO.NZ CLICK ON BLOG

TABLES IN THE PANORAMA DECK OF THE LERMONTOV BOLSHOI LOUNGE

Over the last year that we have been diving the wreck based from the Lermontov Dive Lodge, Go Dive has hosted a huge variety of divers, many of whom are technical divers who use a huge variety of dive kit configuration and techniques. I have learned a heap from these divers experiences, some good and some not so good. Having this experience has highlighted the need for advanced training in wreck diving beyond what recreational agencies currently offer, this has lead me to write my own Advanced Wreck diving outline unique to this type of wreck diving. My outline has recently been approved by PADI and the course is now available to the diving public.  I have scheduled the next course to be run over the weekend of the 15/16th of January with a limited amount of four spots available, this course will be run entirely from the Go Dives Lodge in Port Gore. 

Also scheduled for Jan is a PADI Openwater course over the weekends of 8/9 and 15/16 Jan. For club members referring friends or family on to this course there is a voucher to be had which will give you $50 off a trip or any course, for the openwater student there is a voucher for $50.00 off mask, snorkel and fin  packages.

It’s not to long now until the big fellow in red turns up, so if your struggling for gift ideas  remember Go Dive do have vouchers for dive kit, courses and trips.

safe diving

Brent

Gale force winds, rain and snow to 400m, not the sort of forecast you like to hear when you have a planned weekend away diivng. However if its one thing I have learned over the years, I have to have confidence in the very reason why I set up a dive operation in Marlborough, "you can always get a good dive in, no matter what the weather"

With a full boat load of club members making up the weekends group we headed out on Saturday to East Bay where we planned to check out the scallop population. We were rewarded with visibility in excess of 15 to 20 metres and nearly the boat limit of scallops after the very first dive. The scallops seem to be as abundant as ever and in very good shape for this time of year.

MARLBOROUGH SCALLOPS YUM (Great in a white wine and garlic sauce)

Sunday dawned clear, calm and sunny, I decided to head out to a site I seldom dive due to its location and need for experienced well kitted out divers. Surprisingly we discovered a highly populated bed of scallops, again in very good condition and very large for the area. Also, in residence were Southern Pig fish and Carpet sharks, along with some huge Sand anemones and Tube worms, ideal for close-up and macro photography.

We played out the final scenario for Tomo’s and Hamish’s PADI Rescue course after the first dive, by springing on them a realistic dive accident scenario. Katie joined the 40m club on the last dive, along with completing her PADI EANx course over the weekend.

HAMISH TENDS TO TWO DOWNED DIVERS DURING HIS AND TOMO’S RESCUE TRAINING

Overall it was a very pleasant weekend with a very good group of keen and enthusiastic divers. Congrats to Hamish, Tomo and Katie who finished off of their rescue and Nitrox courses. Also thanks to Warren who acted the perfect victim in the rescue scenario and Guy his dive buddy.

Next weekends Lodge trip is now full, with the long range forecast now looking good, I am looking forward to getting back out to the Lermontov and experiencing the good visibility.

safe diving

Brent

Wreck exploration is progressive in both the techniques you adopt and the extent of your exploration.

There comes a time in a divers career where swimming the outside of a particular wreck isn’t enough and an overpowering urge grows within to explore those stairwells and hatches which lead to the bowels of the ship. Curiosity is what makes us tick, and its this basic instinct that creates this urge to explore, for the untrained and compulsive life expectancy can be short, for the trained and well organized the rewards can be immense and life expectancy normal.

Recreational agencies like PADI offer basic wreck training, these courses are a great way to get you started on wreck exploration, but they are only enough to give you basic skills and knowledge, it takes bottom time and advanced skills to safely penetrate a wreck. Technical diving agencies like TDI do offer generic Advanced Wreck courses, which take the student through the skills and knowledge to required to satisfy ones curiosity. 

MIKHAIL LERMONTOV ADVANCED WRECK DIVER TRAINING GROUND

Having completed many hundreds of hours diving on one of the most penetrable wrecks in the world and experiencing an increasing demand for advanced dives, has prompted me to write my own Advanced Wreck diving outline that focuses on this type of wreck environment. The course  will be specific to wrecks like the Mikhail Lermontov and will focus on skills that not only apply to the Lermontov, but to any other wreck within the 45 metre depth range. Students who successfully complete this course will receive a PADI Distinctive Advanced Wreck Diving Specialty rating, will have completed 4 dives on the Lermontov and have advanced buoyancy skills while kitted out with tools required for advanced wreck diving.

Go Dive will be offering the new Advanced Wreck diving course from August, there are some advanced pre-requisites required as well as equipment requirement’s, so nows the time to start preparing for it. If your interested in finding out more email me on info@godive.co.nz to register your interest. 

safe diving

Brent

Go Dive

www.godive.co.nz

After a few days of relentless rain it was great to see a bit of the sun yesterday, it’s amazing how a few rays can change your mood.

Due to a late start caused by Football world cup fever, I headed down to the shop to get started with some rescue training.  Due to the heavy rain we focused on CPR training and O2 administration, important components of the PADI Rescue course.

Guy and Warren arrived up from Christchurch early Sunday and we all headed out for a local dive. Looking at the color of the water due to run off from the previous few days of rain, we all expected pretty average vis. With a a bit of reassurance that fresh water takes a while to mix with seawater, Warren and Guy headed off for a dive on Koi, and were pleasantly surprised that the bad surface vis gave way to some reasonable vis on the wreck.

LEATHER JACKET ON KOI WRECK

I run through a few Rescue surface skills with Hamish and Tomo, after off which they to headed off for a dive on the Koi, although their navigation wasn’t to good looking at the route they took to get their. At one stage I thought they were going o swim back to Picton underwater, I think the increasing depth may have given them a clue that they were on the wrong bearing.

Second dive we headed over to Kumototo point, vis here was even better with it being close to 8 metres in some areas. Thats the beauty of the Marlborough Sounds, it doesn’t matter what the weather gods chuck at us we can always get a reasonable dive in some where.

It’s not long now until New Zealand hosts the Rugby World cup, soon Go Dive will be posting a schedule of Mikhail Lermontov dive tours from mid Sep 2011 to November 2011 for visitors whom will be visiting New Zealand for the Rugby World cup. With there being games in Christchurch, Nelson and Dunedin, it will be a great opportunity for those traveling between islands to stop off for a few days and enjoy some diving on the Lermontov at a time of year when the visibility on her is at its best. 

Keep an eye out on www.godive.co.nz or email me at info@godive.co.nz if you would like some more info.

Still a few spaces on the July 17/18 Dive Lodge trip, remember this is the first weekend of the scallop season, so we will be heading over to see how our house bed of scollop’s have survived the off-season. 

Enjoy your week.

Brent

Go Dive 

www.godive.co.nz

Go Dives technical diving training program is gaining quite a bit of  momentum with the completion of another TDI course at the Lermontov Lodge.

Bruce Curlow and John Mc Mulian have Truk lagoon in their sites and decided that to make the most of their dives at Truk they needed decompression diving experience. Over the weekend we completed 5 dives on the Lermontov, one on the Koi and Lastingham and a night dive on the Mussel farm. Bruce caught a really nice Cape Jackson cray, which was returned to the water once we took a few photos. Good job Bruce, its good to have responsible divers on board that see the value of these larger crays as breeding animals.

Bruce with his big male cray prior to returning it back to the water.

Soon I will be posting a "Go Dive Tek" page on our web site which will be set up as a resource for those who are interested in technical diving, the page will have links through to other groups within NZ and overseas. There will also be a calender of planned technical dives ranging in difficulty and location for the next two years. This will give those keen on getting involved with an active group of tech divers a  chance to plan well ahead and make the most of their investment in kit and training.

safe diving

Brent

Congratulations to Arnaud and Hamish who completed the practical modules on their TDI Adv Nitrox and Deco Procedures courses at the Lermontov Lodge over the weekend.

The weather wasn’t to flash for the weekend with 80mm of rain falling in over 24hours on Sunday, this made the track up to the Lodge a bit of a challenge, but the mighty Pajero done the job.

The visibility though on the Mikhail Lermontov was pretty good, Steve, Tomo and Katie visited the Starboard side anchor on one dive and had a good 6 to 8 metres on the bottom which is not to bad. On top of the wreck it got up to 10 plus metres in some areas.

On Sunday after our three dives, Arnaud and I made hasty retreat based on the horrible forecast back to Picton with the boat, with the rest of the group coming out early Monday. We finished the course off with 41 metre deco dive in Torea Bay, it is quite interesting the change in fauna as you get a little deeper, we encountered spiny sea dragons and gurnard, species not regularly seen in shallower depths.

All up, not a bad weekend given the average weather, thanks guys and girl for diving with Go Dive Marlborough.

Check out our events calender for upcoming TDI Tech courses and Lermontov wreck trips. Diving a sling and Nitrox really adds value to your diving, especially if your keen on wreck and deep diving.

Poor Knights trip is now full, but happy to take standby bookings or your name for future trips if your keen.

safe diving

Brent

PS: Steve wore his new TDI Cap and Beanie (not at the same time) with pride all weekend, as well as joining the 40 metre club.  

Congratulations to Aaron Harris who has just completed his PADI openwater course with Go Dive in Picton.

Aaron lives locally and plans to make use of his new skills to explore the sounds and collect a bit of Kai-moana.

Well done Aaron.