Three Kings checklist: medicals, oxygen ‘snorting’ and more diving Three Kings checklist: medicals, oxygen ‘snorting’ and more diving

Our expedition team is back from the Three Kings Islands and ready to answer your questions about what they found and to show you some of the specimens they collected to help build their understanding of the marine environment. The blog has been a fantastic chance to follow their discoveries but now you can meet them face to face and talk to them about their preliminary findings about marine life in the Three Kings. In the few days since the team got back on dry land they've already identified that one of the fish they found is likely to be a new species. So who knows what tomorrow will bring. You can meet four of the team - including University of Queensland PhD student Libby Liggins and one of the expedition's photographers Richard Robinson - tomorrow at 11am at the Auckland Museum. There are some more details of the session below and we've also got some more underwater footagREAD MORE...

First of all it was off to my doctor to get a dive medical, to make sure my physical health was up to scratch for heading underwater. All good on that front.

I’m lucky that I have a current First Aid certificate that is less than a year old, so I didn’t have to renew that, but the last time I did an Emergency Oxygen Provider course was for the Kermadecs trip so that needed updating. We won’t be quite as far away from New Zealand as we were last time, but we will have cylinders of medical oxygen on board boat just in case it’s needed – and it’s important that we all know how to administer it, which is how I came to spend an evening with my dive instructor and with biologist Kareen Schnabel from NIWA, who is also coming on the voyage.

Kareen and I took turns being the patient and the first aider, and making the slightly disconcerting discovery that one of the types of oxygen delivery masks makes pig-like snorts when you breath in! I suspect, however, that if I had an accident and needed to be on oxygen I wouldn’t care that I sounded like a pig.

Pig snorts: during our Emergency Oxygen Provider course we discovered one of the oxygen delivery masks causes us to make a pig-like snort but we figure in an emergency we're unlikely to care — Pig snorts: during our Emergency Oxygen Provider course we discovered one of the oxygen delivery masks causes us to make a pig-like snort but we figure in an emergency we’re unlikely to care

Also on the list of requirements for the Three Kings expedition is a recent dive, and as I have to admit I hadn’t been in the water for a while (it may have been a hot summer but the sea around Wellington is always brisk!) it was time to put my wetsuit on, shoulder a dive tank and get wet. Fish biologist Malcolm Francis and I headed to our local dive area, the Taputeranga Marine Reserve on Wellington’s South Coast, and I cruised around enjoying the reasonable visibility (the south coast is famous for pea-soup visibility but on this day we could see quite a few metres, although it was nothing like Kermadecs visibility!).

Malcolm was busy pointing his camera at various fish faces and poking around in nooks and crannies. He gestured me over to show me something in a small cave scooped out of a rock face, but I was too late and all I saw was a swirl of sand on the cave floor. As soon as we resurfaced and took our regulators out of our mouths Malcolm explained what he’d seen – it was a pygmy sleeper, New Zealand’s smallest fish, which only grow up to 4 centimetres long. And it was the first one that Malcolm had ever seen!

Our practice dive yielded an unexpected find - New Zealand's smallest fish the pygmy sleeper which only grows up to 4cm — Our practice dive yielded an unexpected find – New Zealand’s smallest fish the pygmy sleeper which only grows up to 4cm

It was a great reminder that it’s possible to find exciting species right on your doorstep in a place you visit all the time – so just imagine what we might find in the waters around the Three Kings Islands, which are most definitely not on anyone’s doorstep.

My shake-down dive for the Three Kings Expedition with fish biologist Malcolm Francis on Wellington’s south coast was notable for a rare sighting of New Zealand’s smallest fish, the pygmy sleeper. But it wasn’t the only excitement for Malcolm – he also got a photograph of another small elusive fish, the banded weedfish. Although it gets up to 11 centimetres long it’s hard to spot as it is able to change its colour to match whatever seaweed it happens to be resting on. And I can tell you all of that with great confidence because I have looked it up in Malcolm’s new fish guide, Coastal Fishes of New Zealand, which also tells me that the banded weedfish has been recorded from the Three Kings Islands.

Banded weedfish - spotted on our dive off Wellington's south coast but it's also a resident of the Three Kings Islands — Banded weedfish – spotted on our dive off Wellington’s south coast but it’s also a resident of the Three Kings Islands

Malcolm tells me that there are 219 species of coastal fish covered in the new book, and of those 94 have been recorded at the Three Kings, so I’ll making sure we have a copy of the book along on the expedition. I know that Tom and Malcolm can pretty much just look at a fish and know exactly what it is, but that’s a skill I don’t share, so I know I’ll be referring to the book.

Three Kings Butterfish are one of 94 fish species recorded as living in the Three Kings Islands in the book Coastal Fishes of New Zealand - and hopefully we'll be able to add some new records after this expedition — Three Kings Butterfish are one of 94 fish species recorded as living in the Three Kings Islands in the book Coastal Fishes of New Zealand – and hopefully we’ll be able to add some new records after this expedition

And if I have time underwater I’ll be peering at seaweeds hoping to see a small well-camouflaged banded weedfish. And who knows, if I pay particular attention to little caves with sandy floors, maybe I can come up with the first record of a pygmy sleeper for the Three Kings.