Public Address - Club Politique (Home)

Munted | Jun 04, 2006 21:31

I've been trying to think of something rather poetic to say about the new-look HMNZS Wellington, sitting there all by itself on the seabed, and kind of minding its own business. When I originally dived the wreck it was 'nice'. They'd sunk it a spot not too far from shore. It was accessible by a relative beginner like myself, and wasn't one of those wrecks you'll have to make a substantial investment in time and money to get to. But, all that said, it was actually a little dull.

Having only seen two different wrecks, the Wellington and the Eliza Ramsden, I haven't exactly got a whole lot to compare. But the Wellington just kind of seemed a little too artificial, 'contrived' if you will. Which is hardly surprising, considering that it was contrived. You get my meaning though. It was just a little too ready.

Now however? It's something else.

The ocean has kind of taken it, picked it up, smashed the bastard with something like a huge sledgehammer, and left it strewn across a big section of sand.

Very, very impressive.

When I dived it the first time we started at the bow and swam around and over it. Then we did a second dive on the bow and swam around a through it. Because it was prepared for divers the access points were large, and there were a lot of holes cut for light. We got to swim into the huge space of the engine room for example, which was lit from a number of different angles. The water was remarkably clear for Wellington, and the wreck gave up some pretty memorable diving.

I still had this kind of nagging doubt about how many times I'd want to dive it though. There are only so many times you can see the same freaking boat. Personally I'd rather spend the money to try and catch crayfish. Which I've yet to do, by the way. Pesky blimmin' heart trouble.

That said, after the recent storm that originally destroyed the frigate I had intended to visit the site at least once more, but was held back for the same reasons as the crayfish dives. What forced the dive was the rather thoughtful gift of a voucher to dive with Splash Gordons.

As you may or may not be aware, Splashies has had a few problem lately. Their boat broke down and a couple of divers were stuck in the water, for example. Tell you what, trying to swim even the 15-20m back to the boat in full dive gear is incredibly hard work sometimes. Dive suits are designed for underwater swimming, and at the surface all the gear just kind of gets in the way, the flippers simply don't give out very much power, your dive jacket is inflated to keep you at the surface and acts as a form of drag, etc. These two divers were stuck out in the channel half because of these reasons, and half because of currents. But hey, no fatalities, right?

I figure that not long after a 'mishap' is probably the safest time to go anywhere with an adventure company, so grabbed the gift and headed out as soon as the weather permitted (and of course water visibility was up). While I'm on the subject of danger, I was asked the other day about my contingency plan for sharks. Not that they're a danger in our waters. But just in case, you know? Well, I don't have a big dive knife, so there's only one alternative. Make a beautiful corpse.

So, the frigate. Where we dived onto the stern last time, we did so again, and it was pretty much intact. We swam down the back and there was the 'F69' in those big yellow letters. The real difference was when we swam around the side of the tub. The first noticeable difference that the starboard side had collapsed, with large sheets of steel lying on the seabed. Pretty soon it became apparent that the entire contents of the engine room, and we're talking about chunks of iron bigger, and far heavier, than your average car strewn across the sand. I saw the gears from the engine, big, solid steel gears you'd need a crane to lift. They were maybe 15 or 20m from where they used to be?

The remainder of the wreck has been moved metres away and in another direction, with huge girders twisted around on themselves like corkscrews. Big sections of the middle section of the ships (midships) have been picked up and carried away, so that that they form this trail of destruction leading towards the bow, some 50m away.

Hugely impressive. As I say, I've been trying to think of something poetic to say about the majesty of the ocean, and the devastation it has wrought. But let's just say, "that frigate is well and truly fucked." And far more interesting because of it. I'd recommend the dive to anyone.

PS. I'm trying to sell an old 1.8gig PC. Not too bad, just needed to be upgraded. Tana, if you're reading this, could you come over and kick it or something? Might make it worth more than $100. Go you halves!

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Jigsaw Puzzles | May 29, 2006 19:38

Back in Melbourne I used to sit around on Sunday afternoons and listen to Radio 3RRR, a community station that had this great series of shows. The journalism/politics one was just after a restaurant/trade show, and in waiting to listen to that I soon got in the habit of listening to the morning film show. I'll be honest and admit that after visiting some friends in LA in 2001 I was thinking pretty seriously about dropping the study altogether and going to film school.

All that stopped me was the thought of pretty much going back to square one in my chosen profession. Of course, no sooner had I finished the study in that chosen profession I went back to square one in the public service. But at least I get things like paid sick days, something never to be overlooked in the job satisfaction stakes.

You can imagine then that chipping in to make 'Coupled' this past weekend was something of a fulfilment of a long-standing want. So big thanks to Hayden and Mike for letting me talk them into being an odd-body on the set.

For starters I got to work with one of only two Weta Workshops crews (as far as I'm aware). A bloody nice people they were too. If you're going to be hauling your sorry arse out of bed at 6am to volunteer for 18 hour days, it's all good when they're decent people. But this also means that we've put together what, in my most humble opinion, is a pretty good film. I also think I'm not alone in thinking that 'Coupled' is not a barker.

If you're not aware of how this 48 Hours thingo works, you get given a genre, a line or two, a character name, and an event. Each of these things has to appear in the no-longer-than-7min short film. One previous character name was 'Bodil Drezney'. How freaking annoying is that? Luckily this year it was 'Robin Slade', a name dutifully applied. The genre was 'based on a true story', which isn't absolutely the worst. The film also had to include the line, "That's what I'm talking about', and a mirror.

Armed with this information, away we went.

After having seen Hayden's post this afternoon I was surprised at the company I was keeping. You'd think people with as much experience as that crew would be a little more, well, 'wanky'. But no, and should the opportunity arise I'll happy whip up a couple of roast chooks and fresh bread again.

Other highlights include.

- Being too knackered to get it together to blog about the weekend until just now.

- Trying to explain to a rather small dog that mandarins are monkey food. If his ancestors could climb trees, he'd be getting his own citrus. And then watching him eat several segments. Jay, if Charlie carks it, it was Mike's idea.

- Having to get Tom, who was exhausted from being the leading man for 18 hours, help me crash-start the Civic, it having broken down again. It lurched into action so quickly that he almost face-planted. The remainder of the crew near wet themselves laughing. Heh Heh. Fatigue makes other peoples misfortune funny.

- Attending the last few minutes of event, where people rushed to get their films in. At 20 mins to the deadline the huge 'master' clock on the wall accidentally flicked to 0:00:00. I've never actually seen to so many people looking like they just dropped one in their undies.

- Actually a lowlight, but the poor bastard I saw running his film and paperwork up the stairs at the Embassy a good five or ten minutes too late. If he'd done as much work as we had, he'll be gutted to not make it on time. Sorry bro.

All in all a very good weekend. If you're interested in seeing 'Coupled' it's screening tomorrow night at the Regent, look out for the team name 'Bongo and the Sponge Monkeys'. I'll try and get my hands on some of the photos that were taken of the days, so you can get a feel for what happened.

And honestly, if I had have known making films was going to be this much fun? I would have sought the titles, 'Music Supervisor' and '1st AC' many years ago.

Maybe.

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