Sea food gold:
Spiky Gold Hunters – TVNZ Duke Wednesday
It’s tough work diving for kina, but the rewards can be plentiful.
“I’m not going to go out of my way and sort of act up,” says Dwane Herbert. “I didn’t take the job to be a movie star.”
While there is no acting involved in Spiky Gold Hunters, there is a fair bit of acting up aboard Herbert’s boat. He’s the skipper of the San Nicholas and along with his cheeky crew, they are hunting for kina, or sea urchin, in this new local series.
Herbert, who is also a spearfishing champion, says he can earn up to $1000 a day but it’s by no means easy money.
“You’ll spend days on the beach waiting to go to work. You’ll go out, turn around and it’s too rough.”
It can take eight to 12 hours to steam out from Bluff to their fishing grounds. Once they’ve spent a day hauling their catch onboard, there’s also the return trip home.
“So you might work one day but you’ve been away for three.”
Herbert says that kina divers aren’t permitted to use oxygen in New Zealand so the spiny creatures must be harvested by breath-hold diving. As well as the risks that come with free diving, there are also sharks, sea lions and other hazards to consider. Herbert says that while sea lions can be “aggressive and in your face”, fur seals are a different “kettle of fish”.
“We love diving around fur seals because they’re inquisitive and they’re friendly,” he says.
“Every dive is different so that’s the bonus of the job. You get to see something different every day.”
It’s hard work collecting this prized delicacy but these guys like to play hard too. These sea dogs like to wind each other up, using language that can best be described as ‘salty’.
Herbert says he was surprised when producers told him they weren’t going to edit these colourful conversations.
“I don’t know if people are going to like it or not, but we’ll see.”