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I never thought of myself as a technical diver, I just wanted to dive to explore and be underwater as much as I could. Then, at one point, I was diving and could see the reef or the wreck that extended beyond my limits as a diver. That’s when I knew I wanted to go explore farther and discover more. And I knew just what to do. The purpose of the Global Underwater Explorers (GUE) Technical Diver 1, aka “Tech 1” course is to introduce a diver to the skills required for technical diving. It is designed to take you through a progression, gradually increasing the skill levels, beginning with simple manifold failures, and developing safe decompression gas handling, more complex failures, ascent protocols, and decompression management. Once completed, the diver is certified to use trimix to a maximum depth of 51 m/170 ft, and a maximum of 30 minutes of decompression.  Practicing switching onto my stage bottle at the Poor Knights Islands / Image - Josh Fretwell Why Tech 12015 was the first year I thought about the possibility of taking a technical diving course. I was diving the MV Rena, a container ship in New Zealand that ran aground on the Astrolabe Reef four years earlier. The wreck was split in two and the stern starts at 26 m/85 ft, continuing down the reef face to 70 m/230 ft. I remember so clearly sitting at my limit of 30 m/98 ft, thinking about what it would be like to explore the wreck properly. On that day, a little seed got planted. I needed to do some technical training so I would have the skills to extend my capability to dive this wreck. I have been lucky enough to have known GUE Instructor Jamie Obern since I started working at Dive Tutukaka, and he was my instructor for my Fundamentals course in 2014. Since then, he has become my mentor and good friend, whose advice and support are always valued, especially when it came to encouraging me to apply for GUE’s NextGen Scholarship, intended to provide training, equipment, and travel funding to the next generation of divers. He continues to inspire me with his diving knowledge and the GUE community he has created here in New Zealand. When completing my NextGen scholarship application, one of the questions asks, “What course/s would you like to complete in your scholarship year?” This was an easy question to answer; immediately I wrote, “Tech 1.”  Valve Failures and Deco Procedures at Kai Iwi LakesAfter six years of thinking about doing Tech 1, it was finally happening. In June 2021, my teammate Josh and I loaded my Dad’s truck with six twins sets and four stages. We planned on having three days at Kai Iwi Lakes, a beautiful set of lakes in the far North of New Zealand. We arrived the night before, greeted by Jamie as we made ourselves at home before discussing how the week was going to run. Josh and I are both open water instructors and often bounce between using singles and twins depending on the purpose of the dive and location. We went through all our gear thoroughly first, and Jamie closely inspected what we did or didn’t have. Once we were happy with our gear, we got our first introduction to valve failures. Jamie started tapping on our tank to indicate a failure while we talked through what we were doing. Starting with fixable failures, we ran through the drills until we could do it smoothly with just hand signals. We then set off for our first dive. Kai Iwi Lakes is a perfect training ground for divers. As you enter the crystal clear water, the slope immediately drops away, reaching 10 m/33 ft without having to swim very far, then gradually slopes deeper. The bottom is covered in heavy sediment that can limit visibility, if disturbed, but settles quickly.  We started our descent by laying a line using a primary reel while being very aware of Jamie’s position, expecting a failure to happen at any time. He always chose the perfect moment; just as we started to relax into the dive, we would hear a rush of bubbles coming from our manifold. Josh and I took turns comfortably fixing each problem that arose, progressing to multiple problems at the same time. Over the three days at Kai Iwi Lakes, we gradually advanced to more complex failures and became more comfortable with the additional, unfamiliar gear. My most memorable moment was on day two when I had an unfixable valve failure, Josh had lost his mask, then was out of gas trying to get Josh’s regulator so he could switch on to his necklace while having no vision and with both of us getting tangled in our line while Jamie dropped handfuls of sediment on top of us. It ended with all of us at the surface dealing with the problems Jamie gave us in fits of laughter. This was a moment of clarity when I realised that I was ready for this course. On the third day, although only 10 m/33 ft deeper, I found myself making mistakes on drills, which reflected both the increase in depth and tiredness from the previous big days. In the evenings, Jamie would run presentations step-by-step. Math has never been my strong point, so the calculations turned into a game of my calculator versus Jamie’s brain. Most of the time Jamie won, and we eventually got there. Following the three days at Kai Iwi Lakes, we had a day off in Tutukaka before heading out on the boats for our final day of drills, practicing ascents, and deco procedures.  Practicing Ascents in Blue WaterHeading out with Dive Tutukaka, we arrived in South Harbour at the Poor Knights Island, dropping into 30 m/100 ft of water. Blessed with almost tropical blue visibility and surrounded by fish, I almost forgot we were on a course. Jamie’s bubble gun made an appearance, snapping me back into training. We eventually had an unfixable failure, and we called the dive and practiced holding our deco stops while managing our failures. We would ascend to 21 m/70 ft to stop and switch to our deco gas before holding deco stops every 3 m/10 ft until the surface. After completing four ascents holding our deco stops, we were given the thumbs up from Jamie to dive trimix the following day! Unfortunately, the weather had other plans.  After planning our trimix dives and analyzing our gas, the trip was cancelled the following morning. In the weeks after, New Zealand went back into lockdown after the delta variant spread to the community. Auckland was in a strict lockdown from the rest of the country trying to slow the spread, meaning we couldn’t finish the course until the border between Northland and Auckland reopened. During this time, my scholarship gear from Halcyon arrived and was delivered to my door! I felt like a kid at Christmas opening the parcel. Inside the box contained a beautifully designed NextGen Scholar wing and Halcyon regs to accompany it. I received a can light and essentials to prepare me for my Cave 1 course and a bright new SMB and reel. I was beyond stoked to put my new scholarship gear to use for my trimix dives! Finally, in February this year, we were able to reschedule our last dives. We decided as a group we wanted to do another day of practicing ascents before we launched into our trimix dives. With the nod of approval after our dives, we continued to plan our dives for the following day. The weather was expected to get worse, everything was feeling far too familiar, and we were concerned that the dives might get cancelled again. Putting Practice into Reality!We arrived at the dive shop ready to go at 7:45 am, and we were stoked to see the boats were going out! Although it was a bumpy ride, we tucked into a dive site called Middle Arch for our first trimix dive. Josh and I decided I would do navigation based on my time working at the Poor Knights and he was going to run our deco.  Over my five summers working on the dive boats at the Poor Knights, I had slowly ticked off all the dive sites around the Poor Knights above 30 m/100 ft. Finally, I was excited for my opportunity to explore somewhere new. There was a finger reef that projected southwest of Middle Arch that I had only seen from above. Now descending to 44 m/144 ft, I was able to see where this reef went! Immediately we were engulfed in schools of fish. Human-sized kingfish came up and checked us out. Sticking to our dive plan, our average depth was shallower than we had planned for, and as we started deco, we found that we hadn’t accumulated as much deco as we were planning for. Josh was doing deco in his head while I was comparing it to my dive computer. This was a great example for us to talk about after our dive as well as to plan our next dive with multiple options. Switching roles in our second dive, we were able to complete a 76 min dive with 30 mins of deco and a max depth of 45 m/148 ft. As we returned to port, we were told that the boat was cancelled for the next week. Feeling so close, and disappointed that we couldn’t finish, we watched the weather closely and waited for our next chance. A couple of weeks later, all the stars aligned and we were able to head out for our last dive. We arrived at a dive site I had been to only a handful of times and what I knew as “Cleaner Fish Bay”. But what I didn’t know was that the dive site at 30 m/100 ft—called “Boarfish Reef”’—extended down to the sand at 50 m/164 ft. I was beyond excited about exploring a new site, knowing this was exactly the reason I was doing Tech 1. I would be lying if I didn’t say I was a little nervous, but that soon disappeared as we got into the water. We made our way to 50 m/164 ft following the wall along. I couldn’t believe how light it was, how clear the water visibility was, and how large the sponges and encrusting life (including black coral!) on the reef. There were thousands of fish hovering above the reef, dancing into the light coming from my torch. We followed along the wall, averaging a depth of 47 m/154 ft and then started our ascent. Once we had switched onto our deco bottles, we continued our stops while following the wall back toward the boat. It was like diving two sites in one dive. This was my deepest dive to date, and I came up beaming! The best part was I felt so comfortable on the dive and during the deco stops that I couldn’t wait to do my next trimix dive. Trimix Dives on ScootersAfter the course was complete, the GUE NZ community had their monthly weekend dive at the Poor Knights. Wanting to put my new skills into action, I joined Jamie for a trimix dive on scooters, allowing us to find depth quickly and make the most of the time exploring on scooters before coming back along the wall for deco. I still can’t get over the life that can be found at 50 m/164 ft. We had kingfish joining us as if we had been accepted into their school. A curious bronze whaler shark also came in to say hello before swimming off into the blue. Stopping to take it all in, I looked up to see the most amazing wall dropping away to 70 m/230 ft and penetrating the surface above. Tech 1 has opened up a completely new world to what I already knew, and I’m so excited about all the opportunities ahead to explore more.  Thank you Global Underwater Explorers for supporting my training, giving me the ability to make this possible. Also thank you to my amazing sponsor Halcyon for my scholarship gear and for enabling me to spend more time underwater!
A HUGE thank you to my instructor, Jamie Obern, for all your patience, ability to explain anything simply and believing in me. Thank you to Josh for being the best dive buddy and partner! And finally to Dive Tutukaka, there are no words to say how thankful I am for supporting my diving and me as a person.
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It’s pretty safe to say that 2020 wasn’t the year anyone was expecting. You might have read on my social media a couple of weeks ago, I have been cleared to dive! This has come about after my concussion from a surfing accident six months ago. It’s been a long (and at times really frustrating) recovery as I learnt how to let myself rest, things I didn’t realise and probably one of my biggest questions was “how would it affect my diving?” So I thought I would share with you my journey over the last six months, including my injury, my rehabilitation and things to be aware of when returning to diving.  Surfing along the coast of New Zealand that resulted in my concussion / Image - Josh Fretwell Already this year has been a whirlwind adventure as I learn how to balance my GUE NextGen Scholarship, my full-time job and now world-wide pandemic. Just like you, I am missing the outdoors, the chance to get salty and see my ocean friends but on the positive side, I have been able to get through my to-do list - the one that I seemed to never get through. For this blog I want to share with you my job when I am not diving and it's a chance to show you what it is like underwater in New Zealand through 360 videos that a FREE for everyone to view. Make sure you check them out!  Teaching at BLAKE Inspire for Sailors / Image - Bhakti Patel Jumping into the deep end (quite literally!) to kick off the scholarship year and the new decade, the first course I undertook as the NextGen Scholar was the GUE Recreational Diver 3 course (Rec 3). This is a limited decompression course designed to teach advanced diving skills to prepare divers to use decompression cylinders and breathe helium-based gas mixtures. For this course our maximum depth is 39m/130ft. This course is perfect to get me ready for the year ahead, full of upcoming diving adventures.  Image - Kim Hildebrandt Before the scholarship year, I knew I wanted to do my Technical Diver 1 (Tech 1) and Cave Diver 1 (Cave 1), but in all honesty, I didn’t really know much about the recreational courses. I did my fundamentals course within my first twenty dives in 2014 and gained my technical pass the following year. My scholarship mentor suggested the Rec 3 as a really good stepping stone for Tech 1 and a perfect way to start the scholarship year.
I recently got my first taste of everything when I headed over to America to be introduced as the Global Underwater Explorers (GUE) inaugural NextGen Scholar! Over the last week I have been attending the GUE Conference in High Springs, Florida - listening to all of the inspiring speakers and getting to know this amazing community. This was my first time in America and this has added to my excitement of what is to come over the next year.  Image - Justin Barbour The start of my journey as the 2019 GUE NextGen Scholarship has begun and what an incredible week it has been! You’ll be able to follow all my adventures on this blog, the GUE NextGen Scholar Facebook page and my instagram @annika_andresen.  Image - Dive! Tutukaka, Cameron Barton The ocean is an integral part of my life. I was fortunate to have been raised on a yacht my father built and spent my summers sailing and diving along the East Coast of the North Island, New Zealand with my family. I began working in the marine industry in 2013 as a deck hand and snorkel guide for Dive Tutukaka during my semester breaks from University. Whilst there, I completed my PADI Open Water Scuba Instructors and gained a technical pass in the GUE Fundamentals course. You can read more about my background and early experiences underwater in my interview with In-Depth here. Being selected as the 2019 Global Underwater Explorers NextGen scholar is an incredible opportunity that I am honoured to share with you all. The range of wonderful experiences this life around the water has given me, has made me determined to share these experiences with the people around me, working to build an awareness and understanding around issues facing our ocean whilst igniting a sense of wonder with what lies below the surface. These are my goals that I would like to focus on throughout the scholarship year:
 Image - Annika Andresen |
Little bit about me...Born and raised in New Zealand, I grew up around the ocean. I want to share my passion and inspire others to explore, love and protect our underwater environment. |