Earlier this month Athol Steward, 61, swam the shape of a cross over the proposed seabed mining site off the coast of Pātea.
“The ocean 25km off the South Taranaki coast was teaming with life today – in mirror-glass clear water, kingfish torpedoed by, shoaling herring darted away, plus snapper, plankton and coelenterates joined the show,” Steward wrote on his Making Waves NZ Facebook page.
“This pristine scene deserves an undisturbed, unpolluted future. Let’s protect it, let’s stop the threat which seabed mining poses.”