Diver Has Close Call With Watercraft

Occurred on January 31, 2024 / Auckland, North Island, New Zealand

: "Diving on a Shallow Reef in New Zealand when a Jet Ski flies straight over the top of me and collides with my speargun, narrowly missing me. There is a pair of jet skis heading for the ramp, a typical route away from all the rocks and foul ground that lays just beneath the surface. I watch the Jetskis pass, they head inshore. And after a short while, I take a dive down to the bottom in the same area I was in. Now I hear the sound of a motor. The noise is intensifying rapidly, and I put my spear out preemptively to warn anything around that I am surfacing. My spear is rammed by the hull of a jetski as it passes just over the top of me. By the time I'm back up, the ski is well on its way. I dive with a float boat, which is a large floating object designed to be visible for boats etc. Using a 10m line attaching myself to said float, at no point would I have been more than 10 meters away from it. There was an ambulance crew having lunch that saw the whole thing happen, I was able to confirm with them that it was the same jetski that had recently pulled into the ramp. Pretty incredible footage, really lucky to have gotten it but I hope to never come that close again. Very scary at the time and I got chills watching this video initially. Since the incident I have been trying to track down the perpetrator, getting close now!"