BACK IN THE DAY, DIVING IN RETROSPECT

This article is by one of New Zealand’s diving legends, explorer, pioneer, writer, author and photographer Wade Doak (RIP)

Major Paper Nautilus invasion captures photographer

Back in the seventies and armed with a commission from National Geographic I met a squadron of Paper Nautilus swimming in a cul de sac by the Northern Arch (at the Poor Knights). They just started to wobble and didn’t flee. Others, at the Pinnacles, were nestled among the rocks, squirting babies out of their syphons. I had a camera orgy. (see images on these pages).

I began taking undersea photos with a Rolleimarin in the late fifties up in New Caledonia.

Today my ancient, 40-odd year old image archive consists of two and a quarter inches square (6x6 cm) pictures taken on something we called 'film.' I used an expensive Rolleiflex twin lens reflex camera in a tough and heavy Hans Hass Rolleimarin housing made of thick metal and I had to crank the film forward after each shot.

On each dive, and I worked to around 200 feet, I could expose only one dozen images. I lit them by exploding magnesium wire coiled in a small glass bulb with a pulse of high voltage electricity from a capacitor powered by a battery. Then I had to replace the flash bulb.
Quite expensive and maddening having to wait for the film to be processed. It was sent away and returned by parcel post in packages that sometimes went missing… Making duplicates for publishing was another problem… Expensive for good quality dupes and you risked total mail loss of your very best, most precious best shots. A real dilemma. And it happened… My mate Jerry lost forty rolls

But I illustrated the first ever undersea books on New Zealand fishes and marine invertebrates with images made this way. And illustrated our adventures aboard R.V. 'El Torito' in the South Pacific and my books about encounters with dolphins and whales.

But ahhhh - the digital age: you can now take hundreds of pictures (or video) on a single dive with a tiny plastic GoPro digital camera not much bigger than a match box and review them for success on the spot. Then you come home and enjoy a slideshow (or movies) on a big TV screen, print them out, or send them per satellite to friends around the globe. Softies!

In a grotto at three metres, on the side of a steep undersea cliff face, the female nautilus rests while releasing her young. Eggs within the shell case are hatching and the tiny live nautili are being jetted out into the surrounding water, with each pulsation of the female argonaut’s siphon.