Underwater Adventure #1 – Paua Hunting

All right boys and girls buckle up. We are about to embark on another absolutely unbelievable story. Unfortunately I do not have pictures to prove parts of the story. But I do have some after shots. However, I swear to each and every one of you that every detail in this account is accurate as far as my own experience goes. So here we go…
The Duncan’s have this amazing friend named Roger. Roger is a master scuba diver and has all of his own gear, including two boats, a big one and a little rubber duck. Well Roger made the mistake of offering to take me scuba diving, because I have been bugging him ever since. Well finally on Friday he had the day off and decided it was time to appease the American! Thursday night we went over to Bruce and Karen’s, another neighbor and friend, to borrow a wetsuit for me. In the process of talking we were able to convince Karen to come along with us. So we were all excited for the next day.
Because Rodger is such a cautious and safe diver, he wanted to see how I would do in open water before we went truly diving with tanks and BCDs and everything. So as a trial Rodger decided that he would take Karen and I out in the rubber duck to Amaui Island to fish for some paua. Paua is probably closest in description to abalone. It is a really big crustacean, similar to a mussel. The flesh of the paua is black, and the shell is a very bright rainbow color. They are somewhat tricky to catch because not only are they hard to spot because the outside of the shell just looks like a rock, but also they clamp down on whatever they are sitting on if they feel you come too close to them.
Well, being the open-minded girl that I am, I was up for the challenge of paua fishing! I was seriously so excited to go that I couldn’t keep the grin off of my face. I sluffed school so that we could go when the tides were right, and ended up leaving the house at about 1:30. It was a pretty overcast day, and the rain sprinkled on us a couple of times, but luckily the weather held off enough so that it didn’t interfere with our adventure. We pulled into Sandy Point, which is just five miles or so down the road from my house, and unloaded all our gear and the rubber duck boat. Once Rodger pulled the car away and checked all the equipment and gas lines on the boat we were off!
The ride out to Amaui Island took a good thirty minutes or so. The tide was moving the wrong direction and we had a bit of a head wind. Fortunately this made for some awesome riding! Because Rodger was in a hurry to get to the island he cranked up the boat and we went skidding across the breaking waves. It seriously felt like I was tubing! Karen finally made Rodger slow down when we started flying three feet into the air and being able to just barely hold on, but I think she hesitated to tell him even then because I was laughing and grinning so much!
Finally after a bumpy ride we arrived at the island. Karen and I strapped our fins on, put on some weight belts, and jumped into the water. Karen took the Paua Plopper (the name I gave the straight metal tool we used to plop the paua off the rocks with) first and I held the catch bag so that I could watch how it was done. Karen is a master paua hunter because she would look under the water, take a deep breath, and then dive down at some invisible lump and come up with a beautiful paua. Suffice it to say, that I felt severely inadequate.
After about ten minutes Karen handed me the Paua Plopper, took the catch bag from me, and told me to give it a try. Well right when I stuck my head under water I heard a small exclamation from Karen, “oh look a seal!” Immediately I focused all of my attention on looking for the invisible paua shells. It wasn’t that I was afraid of seals, I like them actually, it was more the idea of being in the water with a large mammal, similar to how I felt with the dolphins at the Catlins. So anyway, I’m staring at the bottom of the sea with all of my attention, of course then the ‘seal’ decides to come right up close to us. Can I just say now for the record: IT WAS NOT A SEAL! It was a sea lion! I don’t know if any of you know this, but there is a really big difference between seals and sea lions. Seals are kind of like dogs or puppies, sea lions are mean!
This particular sea lion was ginormous, at least nine feet long from nose to tail-tip. It was after this first close-encounter and general sizing up that I latched on to Karen’s arm. I didn’t really make any noise, I certainly didn’t scream, but I was a little bit terrified. Of course it was then that I looked into the sea lion’s eye and saw what he was thinking, “Hmmm…American sounds good for dinner tonight. I haven’t had that in a long time!” So let me paint you all a little picture: I have been sitting in the water for a good ten minutes with this sea lion and Karen. Rodger is in the boat telling us that it is no big deal, that the sea lion is small, and that he just wants to play. Meanwhile, I am looking in Rodger’s eyes and I can tell that every word coming out of his mouth is complete crap and serving the express purpose of keeping me from freaking out. The sea lion, during this time, is getting braver and braver and showing his teeth, which are about four inches long! It isn’t too long after this that the sea lion starts nipping at our fins. Despite the numerous attempts from both Karen and myself to kick the sea lion in the head, he just kept coming and coming!
Finally Karen informed Rodger that the sea lion was going nowhere and that we needed to move because it probably felt territorial. That was all I needed to hear, I grabbed onto the side of the boat and started to pull myself up. It was then that I realized that the combination of extreme panic and ten-pound weight belt were never going to get me into the boat! Karen and Rodger realized this at about the same time, and luckily the three of us were able to get me in (Although I have to say, despite the panic I was feeling inside, on the outside I remained very calm and collected)! Feeling much braver in the boat I did my part by smacking the water and trying to catch the sea lion’s attention while Karen got into the boat. When we were all in the boat Rodger cranked up the engine and we were off! Of course, our friend the sea lion decided to follow us, I mean we were taking away his dinner, how rude of us! As soon as we rounded the point to get to the front side of the island the sea lion jumped into the air, flicked his tail, and headed back to his place. WHEW!
When we got around the point Rodger got as close as he could to the rocks on that side of the island. The reason we didn’t go to that side of the island first is because there are large swells that beat you into the rocks on shore. However, since our friend the sea lion was not very good at sharing the water, we were left with little choice. In the end, we should have been kissing the sea lion. After Karen did a quick scout and gave the A-ok, I hopped into the water. I had no qualms about getting back in because at this point I had blocked out every thought that was tied to large water mammals that tried to eat me, and focused solely on learning how to get a paua. What I realized as soon as I was in the water and looked at the ground, was that we had hit jackpot! There were pauas everywhere! Even I couldn’t miss the small, round, rock-shaped mounds sitting all over the rocks.
So after Karen got a few more pauas she handed me the paua plopper and told me to go for it! So I took a deep breath, dove down, and slipped the plopper under the paua and flicked…nothing! The paua totally saw me coming and clamped down on his little rock. Up for breath and another try. After a couple more time I picked out my paua, dove deep down, and didn’t grab anything I just stuck the plopper under him and pushed really had…FLYING PAUAS! This paua did not hear me coming! And he went flying through the water! It was really funny, it was like when you have a basketball or a softball come at you when you are not ready for it! I bobbled the paua a few times, grabbed it tight, and swam up to the top. Waiting for me was the cheers and congratulations of Rodger and Karen. I was screaming and screaming I got one I got one! Rodger told me to get to it, and after that I was a paua hunting machine! I easily caught my 10 paua limit and pretty soon it was time to go before we were pummeled into the rocks. We all hopped into the boat, made sure we didn’t have more than 30 pauas, and started to go back to shore. All this time I remained really calm and kind of quite. Then we got back to the Duncan house; that was when I lost it! As soon as I opened the door I said, “Mark, I almost got eaten by a sea lion!!!” Everyone was laughing at me and congratulating me and checking out the paua that we got. It was quite the adventure, and I am so glad that I got the opportunity to go. What an adventure!