Reports

January 2000

- by Michael Collins

It is January 2000. Dave Apperley, Tim Cashman and I make our way to New Zealand’s South Island to dive the Pearce Resurgence. This would be the first time for me, but the second time in two years for Dave and Tim. Dave and I had to fly from Australia to New Zealand with all our gear. Tim has been living in New Zealand for some time now and after this trip he is returning back home to the UK.

Dave and I met Tim in the town of Nelson where our 350kg of gear was added to the car trailer. After two days of shopping in Nelson picking up tanks etc we headed to Mt Arthur where the helicopter would meet us on a farm 1.5 hours walking distance from the Pearce (15 mins flying). It would take four cargo net loads to get the gear in and five to get it all out – a total of 2000 kg of gear - a long, hard walk out if you forgot something! Once the tents and camp were all setup, our first step was to put in backup stage tanks for the rebreathers (Tim and Dave) and as I was on open circuit - for me too! We also placed an inverted 1500 litre container on the ceiling of the cave at 6m. This allowed us to get our heads and hands out of the chilly six degree C water during decompression.

The water was clear enough to see 60m or more in the cave, though this reduced marginally over the time we were there. We did ten dives each with Dave and Tim making it down to a stream bed at 125m (+/-5m). This passage went across 50m then disappeared straight down and also continued along two tunnels going level and up – is this really the start of the dive?!?... I only went down to 100m because of the cold water. I found I could not fit any more clothes under my dry suit in order to do the 130 minute run times that Dave and Tim were doing. I think that the chamber at 60m was the most beautiful of the entire cave - it opens up like a large Cathedral with pillars. We plan to head back with extra equipment (as soon as we can afford it !) to see where the deep tunnels go.

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