Crayfishing Holiday In The Chatham Islands

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31920, 22 February 1969, Page 5

Crayfishing Holiday In The Chatham Islands

(Specially written for “The Press” by DON GRADY/ A Christchurch engineer is spending his annual holidays skin-divin; at the Chatham Islands. He hopes it will be a profitable vacation.

Mr Conrad Mitcalfe does not spend his time under the water idly gazing at the wonders and beauty of the ocean. He plucks crayfish from their rocky lairs, and each time he surfaces he has several crayfish clasped to his chest.

Mr Mitcalfe is on the staff of the Christchurch Drainage Board. Last year he and two companions took their flippers and snorkels to the Chat hams and plucked nine tons of crayfish from the prolific reefs round the Chathams coast. It was a very lucrative holiday.

For those who might wish Io follow his example, Mr Mitcalfe. a veteran of thousands of dives over 16 years, says that diving for crayfish is intensely hard work. Sometimes he spends five hours a day diving at the Chathams, working 20 days without a day off. “Each diver on the last trip worked so hard diving for crayfish that they lost two stone a man,” said Mr Mitcalfe.

The depths they dived at ranged from about 12ft to 35ft.

Mr Mitcalfe cannot afford to equip himself with an ocean-going $50,000 crayfishing boat to cash in on the Chatham Islands bonanza. So he is winning his share as an amateur. Simple Equipment Unlike the near 200 big well - equipped crayfishing boats now working the bountiful Chathams crayfish beds. Mr Mitcalfe is using simple skin-diving and auxiliary equipment that cost only a few hundred dollars This week he is working alone under the stormy; Chatham sea. His only companions are blue cod. octopus, sea eggs, pauas as well as the! occasional inquisitive shark, that he says have circled him. I He knows that if he works; hard he will be well rewarded. ; On his last visit to the; Chathams, Mr Mitcalfe’s two! diving companions were a 28-! year-old Swiss printer. Mr Peter Pulver, and a Sydney plumber, Mr John Gough,! aged 27. They did not use aqualungs, or special breathing apparatus for diving for crayfish, because this is illegal. Their “free-dives” were all with the snorkel.

The average weight of each crayfish they brought to the surface \vas 31b. A dive took about 20 to 30 seconds. Each dive, either from the shore or a small dinghy, won them from one to six crayfish from underwater crevices. The biggest crayfish that Mr Mitcalfe caught underwater was a 121 b buck. He wears gloves. Mr Mitcalfe and his diving mates catch the crayfish at the base of their feelers: with a quick, sharp movement they grab the crays firmly, using one hand.

Occasional Nips

In the other hand and arm. they clasp the rest of their catch against their chests before shooting up to the surface. Occasionally. the big Chatham crays give them a terrific nip. A powerful forward claw of a buck crayfish once penetrated Mr Mit-. calfe’s glove and went through a thumbnail. The pain was so great, he says., that he kicked the crayfish over the rocks. On the surface of the sea where they are diving, Mr Mitcalfe and his companions empty their crayfish into wire baskets supported by inflated tyre tubes. When the wire baskets are full the divers empty them into Mr Mitcalfe’s 11 foot dinghy—probably one of the smallest registered fishing boats in New Zealand. Loneliness underwater, or the fear of mishap while he is alone in the water on a remote part of the Chathams coast, does not seem to worry Mr Mitcalfe, He is one of the pioneer snorkel divers in New Zealand.

His greatest respect is for sharks. He gives the widest , possible berth to the deadly I white pointer or white shark, i and gets quickly out of the

water if he sees any of these man-eaters around. Mr Mitcalfe’s companions underwater are often octopus, conger eels and big barracuda. He has no worries about them.

Tides And Weather

And they, in turn, don't seem to worry much about a human being in rubber diving suit, gloves, flippers, snorkel and lead-weights. Diving for crayfish at the Chathams, says Mr Mitcalfe.

requires expert knowledge of tides and seasonal conditions. His first trip to the Chathams, about three years ago, largely involved underwater exploration of crayfish grounds. On this first occasion he just broke even. Since then his investment in survey work and a study of the patterns of movements of the crayfish have paid off handsomely. He markets his crayfish haul with one of the freezing establishments on the Chathams. The crayfish are hauled to the processing factory by a four-wheel drive vehicle. Mr Mitcalfe says that he has been lucky in obtaining l ready access across farms in the Chathams for his diving venture. His wife, formerly Pauline McClurg, was born on the 'Chathams and lived there till she was 11. This no doubt helped to establish good will. When Mr Mitcalfe returns, next month from his annual; holiday in the Chathams, he, will continue with his spare-1 time activity of diving for mussels and sea-eggs (sea urchins) off Banks Peninsula.

Mussel Market He sells these to the general public in Christchurch at $4 for a bag. slightly larger than a sugar! bag.

To reach the mussel beds that abound around Banks Peninsula, he uses his 28ft former North Brighton surfboat. powered by an 18 h.p. outboard.

Mussels of superb quality., he says, are easily found just) below low-tide level in Canterbury. whereas the mussel, beds of the Hauraki Gulf,: that supplies the Auckland I market are now nearly depleted. Initially, Mr Mitcalfe is assessing the Christchurch i market for mussels and sea eggs, but later he says he; may send them north, where] the people have been tradi- ■ tionally big mussel-eaters for] many years. Recently, when Mr Mitcalfe I advertised in “The Press” to; ( sell sea-eggs, he says, he did not expect much interest but ! was surprised at the results. "

Most mussel-eaters, he says. 1 seem to steam them open and eat them with bread and butter. But some fry them in patties and others make mussel soup. Smoked mussels, or mussels soused in vinegar with onion, sugar and seasoning are tasty.

Sea eggs, says Mr Mitcalfe,: can be eaten raw or fried in I batter, as with oysters. The I five roes in each sea egg' are the part that is eaten. In his skin-diving off Banks

Peninsula, Mr Mitcalfe retrieves the sea-eggs from the sea-bed at a depth of about 20ft.

He says that if the Christchurch public shows a liking for them, he will bring down his price from $4 a bag. The bigger the demand, he says, the cheaper his ocean delicacies will become.