Chapter 31: Our Circle Expands

I woke refreshed in the mid-afternoon, removed the rice pudding to cool, and had time to mow the lawns and shower before Pauline, Ryan, and Leslie arrived more or less together, but in separate cars. Stan and Sarah came over with Butch a few minutes later. I introduced Ryan and Leslie, and everyone busied themselves with their potluck contribution. My kitchen isn’t really big enough for more than two people to work in, but I noticed that all the cooks seemed sensitive to each other’s needs for bench space and utensils.

Once the food was sorted, we quickly reached consensus that a walk on the beach before tea was a good idea. Butch was waiting by the door before anyone reached it. Smart dog!

We wandered down my drive to find a Fisheries Inspector’s SUV parked by my letterbox, and waved hello as we crossed over to the beach. A pair of young guys in civvies got out and followed us. They clearly wanted to talk to us so we stopped on the beach reserve.

“Good afternoon”.

“Kia ora. How can I help you?”

The taller one nodded towards my house. “You’re locals?”

Three ‘Yes’s and a couple of ‘No’s in unison. Stan followed with a ‘Why?”

“We’re investigating a report that a gang of people are poaching Rock Lobster in this area and selling them online.” Ryan was almost scornful

“Doubt it. There might be a few people who take more than their quota if they can get them, but there aren’t enough crays here to support any sort of commercial operation.” The younger one seemed to take this reply as some sort of challenge to his authority, and bristled slightly.

“Know all about Rock Lobster do you?”

“Been diving in this area for twenty years.” The senior guy was placatory.

“There may be nothing in it, but it’s our job to check out information that becomes available.” He pulled out a couple of photos of a very big trailer boat and a couple of business cards. “Have you noticed this boat? We’d really appreciate it if you would let us know if you see it.” He passed the photos over and handed out a couple of cards. We took them without comment, and they thanked us, returned to their vehicle and headed further out along the road. Ryan was not impressed.

“Bullshit!” Sarah was intrigued.

“What’s the bullshit?”

“They aren’t Fisheries for a start. Almost certainly cops or customs.”

“Why do you think so?”

“Fisheries Inspectors always wear uniform and carry ID. They have to – Fisheries Act. And the card just has a name and number - no Fisheries insignia. Betcha they borrowed the SUV. There’s something going down.” Pauline had been looking closely at the photo of the boat they had given us.

“We saw a boat just like this when we went out to the Motuheiheis. You made a joke about it.” Ryan was dismissive

“Dozens of models of supersized trailer boats, hundreds of boats like this.” He had obviously forgotten about Pauline’s research skills and obsessive interest in all things nautical and piscatorial.

“Nah – it’s a Bluefin 780 Weekender. Not too many of those!” I grinned

“Betcha by this time Monday she knows just how many there are.” Leslie nodded agreement.

“And what extras each had fitted.”

Ryan nodded ruefully, Stan and Sarah laughed, and Butch remained apparently indifferent. Their amusement gradually became tinged with astonishment as they realised, we were serious. Leslie explained.

“Pauline is very very smart. Since we got the internet, she has learned to use it to research anything she gets interested in. She seems to be able to tell good information from bad, and she seems to surprise everyone that gets to know her.”

As we moved off along the beach, Sarah engaged Pauline in a technical and almost incomprehensible discussion about searching online, involving “drilling down” and various other arcane terms, Leslie held my hand but didn’t say much, and Ryan and Stan talked about mushrooms. Butch trotted along in front of us exploring the jetsam along the tideline.

We walked to each end of the sand and back again, and came back to my driveway in time to wave at the Fisheries SUV and its occupants as they came past again on their way back to town.

We dined well again. The ‘wine’ Leslie and Pauline had promised turned out to be a top-of-the-line Chardonnay. Delicious, but one glass was enough. The cleanup was seamless, and Ryan once again produced his vape once we got to the coffee. Pauline passed happily, but the rest of us got mellow and settled into couch, chairs and beanbags with a bit of music and desultory conversation. Stan was paying a lot of attention to Pauline, Leslie was glued to me, and Ryan was sizing Sarah up.

In the end, nothing came of these particular pairings. We talked about tripping the following weekend, Stan said he had looked at the weather map and there was a depression coming so there should be a flush of mushies. Sarah promised to schedule a walk on the Watts place in the next few days.

I noted Pauline looking puzzled, and would have bet a substantial amount that the relationship between low atmospheric pressure and fruiting mushrooms was about to be thoroughly researched. Ryan said he would have a look on Maungatutu during the week, and there was general agreement that the individual doses Pauline had weighed out from the dehydrator should be saved for ‘later’ if someone got something fresh. We agreed that our first trip together was tentatively next weekend, and should in principle be ‘sex free’. Sarah, Stan and Butch went home, Ryan and Pauline departed in separate cars, and I had no idea whether they had agreed to get together in town.

That left me and Leslie. I think we both assumed she was staying the night, but in the event, she bailed out after a phone call from someone she described as an ‘honorary’ granddaughter. Leslie said she had previously promised to take her ‘Sunday shopping’ and that promise was now being called in – something about a birthday. She offered a ‘quickie’, but I wasn’t horny, and we promised each other ‘another time’. I had a deep and dreamless sleep.

My phone woke me at sparrow fart on Sunday morning. It was Pauline (surprise surprise!). That bloody woman wakes early and can’t seem to understand that civilised people don’t. She wanted to go diving and told me that if I agreed, she would come out late morning and stay the night. I was a bit grumpy, and threatened to lock her out if she arrived before noon. That gave me time to have a lie in, a leisurely breakfast, gas up the boat, and load the dive gear and some ice. We each had half a tank left from our previous dive, and I was planning something easy and shallow from the boat, albeit a little more exciting than our dive in the bay.

Pauline ran the trip again. We picked up a couple of Kahawai under the white water round our favourite headland, and then tucked in behind it, out of the main tidal current and anchored there, 20 m from the rocks. But shit happens! So while Pauline flew a dive flag, I streamed 30m of line on a float astern.

“What’s that for?”

“There’ll be no one in the boat to come and pick us up. We’ll go down the anchor warp and swim up current along the weed line until we find an interesting gut to explore. I plan to come up alongside those rocks. That’s a bit up tide of the boat, but if something goes wrong and we have to swim against or across a current, it’s nice to have a big target.”

We suited and geared up, and after the standard check of each other’s gear, we put in our mouthpieces and rolled backwards off opposite sides of the boat into the (relatively) warm clear water. A first entry is always a little shock, even in a full wetsuit, but after a couple of breaths, the body gets used to it. Pauline led as we pulled ourselves a few metres down the anchor line hand over hand, then adjusted our buoyancy, and followed it down towards the kelp, 15m below.

Our anchor for these very rocky conditions was homemade – a length of 2” galvanised pipe with a couple of loops of rebar threaded right through it and bent outwards where they emerged at the other end to form 4 rebar tines. A crude but effective grapnel. When it got snagged, we could tie of the anchor warp and gun the motor to bend the rebar and free the anchor. Pauline checked it was firmly lodged in a crevice and unlikely to break free during our dive. Good!

She led off down slope. The broken rocky terrain levelled out to sand around 20m, and we swam against the gentle current just above it around the edge of the kelpy rocks. Geologically, the area is what is technically known as a ‘dog’s breakfast’, with lava flows and conglomerates formed from volcanic boulders and ash. They erode at different rates, and it wasn’t long before we came to the mouth of another ‘underwater valley’ similar to the one in my bay where we had seen the ray.

We had started with about 100 bar each in our tanks, and the PADI teaching is very clear and specific that divers should always have a ‘safety margin’ of 50 bar. For the sort of diving I usually do, I am happy to push that margin a bit, but I didn’t want to encourage Pauline into bad habits So we swam slowly up the sandy ‘valley’ to eventually surface by the rocks of the headland, pretty much as I had intended. The only excitement was Pauline’s first nose to mask encounter with a moray eel. She knew all about them of course. I had no doubt whatsoever that she had located and devoured a fair proportion of everything ever written about diving in New Zealand. But that’s not quite the same thing as suddenly peering into a crevice and turning your head to find your face a foot from an open mouth armed with lotsa very nasty looking teeth.