Radio New Zealand - Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa

Main navigation list - the services of Radio NZ

• Home
• National
• Concert
• News
• International
• Sound Archives

Extreme Diving in New Zealand

with Lynda Chanwai-Earle

New Zealand Society

Part 2: Commercial Paua Divers

5:12pm Saturday 5 January 2013

Haliotis Iris, (black footed abalone or paua) and Evechinus Chloroticus (kina, or spiny sea urchin) are “black gold” for the local and international seafood markets, but being at the mercy of the weather and risking life and limb being bitten by sharks or territorial bull seals comes with the job as a commercial paua diver.

Lynda spends a day with father and son team David and Jason Baker from Saavid Diving Ltd, one of the larger commercial paua diving operations in Marlborough Sounds. What’s it like to spend up to eight hours a day in freezing New Zealand waters? What about fatigue or shallow water black-out?  And what on earth is a “scupper”?  A day in the life of our most extreme hunter/gatherers, our commercial paua divers.

Gallery: paua divers David and Jason Baker

The history and diversity of New Zealand’s most extreme and dynamic underwater career and sports; scuba and free-diving is little known.  As an experienced recreational scuba diver herself and recently having joined a local free-diving club to learn more about competitive breath-hold/apnea diving, Lynda Chanwai-Earle explores these fascinating vocations.

Throughout this four part documentary Lynda meets Navy divers, commercial paua divers, NZ Police divers and chats to our world champion free-divers who can breath-hold for as long as the interview. She even gets into her wetsuit for some underwater action of her own!

Podcast

The link(s) below can be pasted into your podcasting software.

Podcast (MP3)

Oggcast (Vorbis)

For more podcasts and the conditions of use, please see our podcast page.

Search

Search