MATATAUA on ice

“Hukapapa” translates to ‘ice’ or ‘frost’, and that is exactly what a team of Hydrographers and Divers from HMNZS MATATAUA encountered as they embarked on a long training exercise at Lake Alta in the Remarkables mountain range near Queenstown.

The aim for the week was to test our survey and underwater search equipment to see how the gear would react to an extreme cold weather environment. Lake Alta was the perfect location for this, being accessible from Queenstown, and having a thick layer of ice over a sufficiently deep lake. This is in preparation for a survey tasking at Scott Base, Antarctica, where the team hope to deploy later this year. A deployment to Antarctica would be a first for MATATAUA, so we called on the experts at Antarctica New Zealand to help us work in the cold environment, and to provide us with some extreme cold weather clothing – for which we were truly grateful! We also weren’t sure how REMUS, our Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV), would react to working underneath a layer of surface ice, so we gave the Police Dive Squad a call to see if they would be interested in a combined training exercise. This would have the benefits of providing the opportunity for some ice dive training for them, as well as us having a helping hand nearby to recover the AUV if it decided to get temporarily misplaced under the ice.

After some careful planning, personnel from MATATAUA joined members of the Police Dive Squad, as well as a team from Antarctica New Zealand in Queenstown to embark on a week-long stint of training. We weren’t quite sure what to expect, but the Police Dive Squad members soon had us sorted with a couple of holes cut into the ice, and some shelters to work under. Under the watchful eye of Antarctica New Zealand field instructors, we were able to safely conduct a series of equipment tests with both our Remotely Operated Vehicle and AUV – all whilst learning that the ice around an ice hole gets extremely slippery when wet! Luckily, we had no mishaps, and the only people entering the water were the police divers, with the proper attire, of course.

The whole exercise was a resounding success, albeit with a little help from the divers once or twice to recover an adrift REMUS. We were also excited to receive a visit from the Maritime Component Commander (MCC), Commodore Mat Williams, later in the week, and were able to demonstrate to him how well the equipment was coping in the cold environment.

The Remarkables ski field is one of the best ‘offices’ I’ve worked in, especially as the ski field itself was closed during the week and we effectively had the whole place to ourselves. We also managed to transit to and from work each day in a few different styles – including Ski-Doo, snow groomer, helicopter, and down the ski field sliding on plastic sheets (even MCC had a go at this one!).

After a long week of equipment trials it was time to pack up and return to Auckland, which was a little different as the city had since been put into level three lockdown. We would like to sincerely thank the teams from Antarctica New Zealand, the Remarkables Ski Field, Southern Lake Helicopters, and especially the Police Dive Squad, who made the exercise possible in the first place. After living and dining with us for a week, the Squad had one final recommendation: “Always deploy with a Navy chef, the most important member of the team!”