In 1985 Greenpeace's 'Rainbow Warrior' was moored in Auckland Harbour, preparing to sail as part of flotilla to protest against French nuclear testing in their pacific atolls. The French took exception to this and sunk the ship in what was supposed to be a covert operation, albeit right there in Auckland Harbour. One of Greenpeace's photographers, Fernando Pereira, lost his life.
I won't go into the details further, as if you're interested you can find out more on the Internet. However, after a couple of years the ship was eventually laid to rest further up the coast off Matauri Bay. The purpose of this was to create an artificial reef for marine life (in keeping with the theme she was due to protest on) and to provide a dive site, wrecks often becoming such havens for fish, coral and kelp and hence being popular with scuba divers.
That's the background. The relevance is that for this reason, I decided to extend my stay in Paihia, it being a base from which dive trips go to the Rainbow Warrior. My thinking was that it could be some time before I was back in New Zealand, and I might regret it if I didn't take the opportunity to do this dive. So that's what I did, I dived to the wreck of the Rainbow Warrior, and I'm very glad that I did. There are some photos on Facebook. If you'd like to take a look, send me your email address and I'll get Facebook to send you the link.
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1 comment:
I have been looking at the photos on Facebook, very cool. You look like you're having a great time John. Also, saw some photos of what looks like pot-holing or some similar activity. Now that's impressive, not sure I'd enjoy that.
Stay safe.
xxxxx
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