{"id":734,"date":"2021-09-03T04:37:49","date_gmt":"2021-09-03T04:37:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/divehq.co.nz\/blog\/?p=734"},"modified":"2021-09-03T04:37:49","modified_gmt":"2021-09-03T04:37:49","slug":"a-spectacular-night-dive-at-baxters-reef","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/divehq.co.nz\/blog\/a-spectacular-night-dive-at-baxters-reef\/","title":{"rendered":"A Spectacular Night Dive at Baxter\u2019s Reef"},"content":{"rendered":"

Baxter\u2019s Reef in South Bay of Kaikoura, New Zealand, is an Aquatic Gem and one of my
\npersonal favourite sights to dive. It is a sight that is great diving for both beginner and
\nadvanced divers. With an abundance of marine life during the day, my buddy Dom and I
\nthought we would go have a look after dark, camera in hand. As many divers know, diving a
\nsight at night is a completely different world, and Baxter\u2019s is no exception. While we had
\ndived Baxter\u2019s reef at night before, we had never done so specifically for photography and
\nwith no time restrictions except the air remaining in our tanks. There was no doubt we were
\nin for a treat.<\/p>\n

We swum out to the \u201cschool\u201d which is a large open area with a sandy bottom at the edge of
\nthe reef just after the sun had disappeared and a large moon was on the horizon. We
\ndescend and enter the reef. The first thing I come across is a large crayfish walking about,
\nnot a care in the world and something I would usually target, however not this time. With
\nthe use of a red light, the cray was not worried about me and seemed to be almost
\noblivious. As I got closer, I noticed he wasn\u2019t alone. He was with a small Terakihi, and they
\nseemed to almost be playing. This was something I had never seen before, a crustacean and
\na fish wandering and exploring the reef together under the cover of night. After a while the
\ncray seemed to get a bit wary of me and partially hid under a rock with the small terakihi
\nnot leaving his side. I decided to move on and let them be, but not before snapping a couple
\nof photos.<\/p>\n

What I came across next was something I had only heard about a couple of weeks prior
\nafter studying some of the marine life that we have on offer here in New Zealand, a Walking
\nSea Anemone. Little did I know, I had seen them during the day dozens of times before and
\ntaken little notice of them thinking they were some form of eggs. During the day these
\ncreatures turn themselves inside out and have the appearance of a ball of eggs, however at
\nnight they open up and bloom into a beautiful anemone swaying in the surge like a flower in
\nthe wind. As I take a good look around, I notice quite a number of them starting to open up
\nand \u201cwalk\u201d around the reef on their slug like foot. This being how they have earned their
\nname. Seemingly wandering around the reef in search of a place to find food and a calm
\nplace to settle for the next day. Some had found themselves in amongst the weeds flowing
\nin the surge up to a meter either way and others on more solid ground, again moving back
\nand forth in the current attempting to catch food in their tentacles.<\/p>\n

Swimming on from there I came around a rock only to find a beautiful large Butterfish
\nsleeping in the kelp, vertically. I had seen fish sleeping before, but not like this. The
\nButterfish had its pelvic fins \u201cwrapped\u201d around a stalk of kelp about 2 metres up, holding on
\nso it wouldn\u2019t get swept away by the current and surge. It didn\u2019t take much to wake the fish
\nand it simply let go and gracefully drifted down and out of the kelp in search of a new perch
\nfor the night after being rudely disturbed. I decided not to pursue and to see what else
\ncould be hanging around in this area as it seemed to be a little more protected from the
\nsurge with smaller, less harsh water movement. I found more large Crayfish just walking\u00a0about, massive Hermit crabs fighting, anemones waving about, and as I look more closely\u00a0around and under rocks, I find a large snail. At first thought snails seem rather boring, but\u00a0when you look closely, they are pretty cool creatures with stunning patterns on what I\u00a0would call their head. Seeing it almost completely out of its shell sucking on the rock was\u00a0amazing to see as snails generally keep well within their shell for protection during the day.\u00a0As our tanks begin to get low, Dom and I start heading back towards the \u201cschool.\u201d Just as we\u00a0think it couldn\u2019t get any better, a local Stingray graces us with its presence giving Dom a hell\u00a0of a fright as it swims overhead and down right in front of him and off into the distance. I
\ncome across a baby Octopus the size of my thumb, who seems to be just as interested in me\u00a0as I in it. However, in the blink of an eye, its gone. As we get back to the school and surface,\u00a0Dom and I can hardly contain ourselves and are blown away by the incredible dive we just\u00a0had. And to top it all off we lay on our backs for the surface swim back to shore and observe\u00a0the glittering night sky.<\/p>\n

It was amazing to see how the creatures we see being very cautious and wary during the
\nday seem to drop their guard and open up, almost becoming curious of something they
\nwould otherwise run from. It was an amazing experience to passively observe a marine
\nenvironment and how it can change under the night sky and gain a new respect to a sight I
\nalready appreciated. Night dives will never be the same.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

By Matthew Robinson:\"\" \"\" \"\" \"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Baxter\u2019s Reef in South Bay of Kaikoura, New Zealand, is an Aquatic Gem and one of my personal favourite sights to dive. It is a sight that is great diving for both beginner and advanced divers. With an abundance of marine life during the day, my buddy Dom and I thought we would go have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":735,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/divehq.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/divehq.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/divehq.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/divehq.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/divehq.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=734"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/divehq.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":741,"href":"https:\/\/divehq.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734\/revisions\/741"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/divehq.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/divehq.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/divehq.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/divehq.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}