What Did May Look Like For Us?

 

May 14th saw New Zealand return to level 2 restrictions, meaning we were able to get back into the water, doing what we love and taking our awesome customers out exploring. 

You can probably tell from mine and Jake’s faces how excited we were about this! Although we were back working at Level 3, we couldn’t open our doors to welcome people in or get out in the water, so Level 2 was very welcome by us, as I’m sure it was to many of you! 

So what have we been up to since we’ve been back? 

We have had to make some small adjustments to our procedures to ensure we can carry out our diving activities safely, making sure we meet government and worksafe requirements, all while still sticking to our diving industry standards. We wanted to ensure that, as always at Waiheke Dive, we have the highest level of safety for both our customers and staff.  You may have noticed in the photo that Jake and I took, we were safely socially distanced for our selfie!

So, day 1, we carried out a full ‘wet run’ of our processes. Every aspect of our day was trialed, from our ‘customer’ (me) turning up in the shop to complete paperwork and gathering/loading gear, to travelling to the dive site and washing the gear back at the shop. We were super happy to report back that it worked! Adam and his very official looking clipboard were happy. Super pleased we could meet all of the requirements safely meant we were able to open up for bookings, with Jake taking our first ‘post Covid-19’ customer out for a dive on the weekend. 

We certainly noticed a drop in the water temperature, sitting at the moment around 17/18 degrees, so time to layer up in gloves, hoods and vests in addition to thick wetsuits, but plenty of marine life out there to see currently, with sightings of lots of pipefish, an octopus and baby crayfish amongst lots of our usual suspects in our first couple of days. 

We had an awesome week of beautiful sunshine and warm weather as soon as we were back up and running, which meant we had plenty of take ups on our awesome May offers. We had people jumping in the water for a try dive, experiencing scuba diving for the first time and enjoying the underwater world. It’s always a pleasure taking ‘newbies’ out and introducing them to our underwater world. Check out our website to find out more or book your Discover Scuba experience with us. 

We had fun divers jumping in the water with us for some exploring who managed to spot our resident octopus at Enclosure Bay, as well as lots of pipefish hiding in the kelp, plenty of parore and juvenile goatfish galore. Want to join us soon? Click here to book your dates. 

We have been back in the water with our Open Water Course students from the Waiheke High. This awesome group of teens were keen to get back in the water to continue their training which started back in February. More dives planned with them this week to get the course finished and we will have 9 new open water divers. 

We have also been doing lots more planning behind the scenes to make sure we have some exciting stuff to keep us in the water over winter. Keep an eye out on our Facebook and Instagram pages for some brand new workshops which we are excited about! These will be launched towards the end of June, spaces will be limited due to our small group sizes so make sure you get booked on early. 

We’ve also been continuing with our shop, vehicles, and gear maintenance. Delayed slightly whilst waiting for parts this has back in full swing and keeping us busy on the days where we’ve not had such good weather. Come down to the shop to see for yourselves and book some exciting water adventures or contact us with any questions you have. 

Lucy and The Waiheke Dive Team