Lake Pupuke & what it means to Louise
I moved to New Zealand in 2013 and my first dive in New Zealand was in Lake Pupuke, in late July – it was a rite of passage I was told! I was pleasantly surprised - I took up some part time teaching with a local dive shop. The lake was where we would conduct the second day of the open water courses for dives 3 and 4.
I remember thinking how convenient it was to have a local resource like that where you could find the depth you needed, a relatively rocky area that made the perfect teaching platform for students to perform skills, and still a bit of sediment to be able to see if the students were stirring up any of the bottom for the “tour of the lake”. It was a safe area, with plenty of room and was always open – unlike the ocean!
On a personal level we would often use the lake for fine-tuning skills, practicing drills, or just for the sake of the peace and quiet that comes with any submersion. There was a solid community feel, and on any given weekend we would be able to show up and know that there would be people there either in the water or enjoying the crepes and coffee with the serenity of the swans and the inexplicable beeping of another Inspiration re-breather.
Fast forward a year or two and the lake became unusable for open water courses, from a professional level the visibility became too bad to be able to honestly say that you were able to safely supervise students. On a personal level I still enjoyed diving there – if anything the thick, zero visibility surface layer made it feel like an overhead environment, and after spending a year in Mexico I know that I am at my happiest in a cave – always one to try and see the positives!
Over the last couple of years my lake dives have mostly been for monitoring purposes – visibility checks at the monitoring station, and some sediment sampling dives. The lake still has a sense of community around it, but this time it seems more purposeful. While from the outside it seems like an unusable resource, what the Pupuke Project, diligently organised by Ebi in collaboration with the Auckland Council, has done is turn this into an example. It has given volunteers a sense of purpose, and a feeling of responsibility over the importance of monitoring these changes over time.
Lake Pupuke is dynamic, and the scientist in me is fascinated by the way the lake works. A huge positive to take from this is that with its decline, Project Baseline Lake Pupuke has paved the way for a framework that has the opportunity to roll out monitoring programs nationwide. It has developed relationships between Auckland Council and Project Baseline and local divers who are ready to, literally, jump in and help.
I think that the community outreach and engagement opportunities and solid framework that have come from the decline of what was a very important local resource is priceless. I think as a community we have an exciting future ahead of us, and personally I can’t wait to jump into whatever puddle of mud I get assigned to!
