I hadn't dived in Taupo for many years and was keen to have another look. Greg seemed to know a bit about Taupo dive sites and any dive on a Friday had to be a lot better than a day in the office.

Motutere looks promising on the chart (NZ 232) with the 50 metre depth contour reasonably close to shore. Google Earth shows the deep blue stuff fairly close in and an interesting patch of foul at the eastern end of the bay.

Google Earth Placemark

We swam out to a buoy in just a couple of metres of water and then descended down an impressive rocky wall to a sloping silty bottom.

Aquatic life in the lake is sparse compared to the rich marine life found around our coasts. Koura (freshwater crayfish, Paranephrops planifrons) were common on the muddy bottom and congregated around dead branches and other debris.

Abundant little fish are, I think, common bullies (Gobiomorphus cotidianus). Like the koura, they hang out around any debris on the bottom. The bullies and koura seem unphased when approached by a big ugly diver and should make good macro photographic subjects.

We saw several smallish catfish and had several of these odd critters followed us and occasionally nibbled the tips of our fins.

You're chilled by 12° water at 40 metres but it does feel toasty when you ascend into the 22° stuff in the shallows (in February).

We were using trimix diluent and hoped to get a little deeper than 43 metres. At this depth the bottom had a very gentle slope and I was keen to make sure we could find our way back to the shallows.