My Mares EOS 20RZ torch decided to descend to the bottom of Northern Arch on the previous day's dive there. Today we returned to the site and the Northland Dive dive instructor descended to the bottom to search for it. The visibility was so good that morning that even from 15m, we could see the instructor pretty clearly at 40m. It was so clear we could also see three Bronze Whaler Sharks down there with her! Judging from the size of them at that distance, one must have been at least two metres. Unfortunately she couldn't find the torch so the shark sighting was our only reward.
After hanging around to see the result of the search, we decided to pass through the arch. As soon as we were 30 seconds into the arch, I could tell how strong the current was. We absolutely rocketed through the arch and I knew it was going to be a real struggle to get back. We basically had to claw our way back by clinging onto rocks on the arch walls to rest between bouts of kicking hard against the current. It was enough effort that my surface air consumption (SAC) rate maxed out at 3.0 bar/min (versus 0.8 bar/min when I'm calmly diving along). Since we went through a fair amount of air, it was time to ascend after getting out of the current.
Back on board, I was very appreciative of the effort the instructor went through to try to find the torch. She mentioned I should post on a New Zealand diving Facebook group to let people know a torch was lost there in case someone found it. I wrote a post with the image below to give people an indication of where it approximately landed. I got a good response from the community and a group of four divers even spent 5-10 min looking for it on a later date but no luck. I was really greatful for all of the effort people put it looking for it.
Northern Arch
Location: Poor Knights Islands, Northland, New Zealand
