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The Expedition's Sponsors
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When I first approached Paul Elsden about the Expedition I was surprised how receptive he was to my ambitious plans. Paul makes no bones about the fact that he doesn’t do this sort of thing very often but the fact that he needed local material to help promote Apollo helped my case. I remember when it was time to pick out the necessary dive gear Paul led us around his warehouse and basically pulled off the shelf anything we needed. Rob and Craig also went to the effort of ordering special safety equipment that had never been ordered before. So far the gear has exceeded our expectations despite having given the gear a pretty rigorous work out over several salt and fresh water dives. You can read more in our Journal pages. Anyway a special Thanks to Paul Rob and Craig and I look forward to reporting how well the equipment fares at the Islands |
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Where would the world be without GPS? Cars trucks planes and boats have GPS systems these days. An important part of this project is to gather accurate GPS information on relics at the Auckland Islands. These relics are in danger of being lost to decay or hidden by bush and peat. I would like to thank Gary Chisholm from Trimble New Zealand and Martin Hewitt director of Geo-systems New Zealand for their help in making this part of the project possible. The principles of setting up a Differential GPS system that will give accuracy to half a meter or less sounds simple enough, but it requires skilled staff, special GPS equipment and a cooperative landscape. Well Martin couldn’t help us with the cooperative landscape but from his office in Christchurch he did everything else possible. Two of our team, Julie Hulford. and Steve have been trained in the use and deployment of the costly position recording units which have been lent to us by Geo-Systems for this project. Despite the complex mathematics involved Steve and Julie seem to have picked up how to use the equipment in just a few days. I look forward to telling more about how the equipment and everything works together. I will leave our local experts Julie and Steve tell you about that. |
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What a great bunch of guys. Mark and Ian I owe a big thanks for literally taking care of every aspect of our web page and what a fine job they have done. Most of the time I struggled to get them material quick enough to keep Mark and Ian busy. This project has really brought home to me the importance of having a web site these days. So many people expect that they can be informed about happenings world wide through the web. I don’t think they will be disappointed! |
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There are many people who contribute to a project like this but Graham Thumath at Norcross Dive deserves a special mention. Graham was my original dive instructor way back when I first learned to dive 3 years ago. To me Graham is the picture of a total dive enthusiast. Ever since I got my first diving certificate Graham has lent me gear at almost uneconomical rates at the drop of a hate. He always told me that charging full price made the sport inaccessible for many New Zealanders. I was naturally disappointed when Graham could not get the time away from his dive school to come on this expedition. Even though Graham couldnt make it he continuted to give us all the assistance he could. He lent us 5 tanks, various spare parts, his oxygen bottle, countless free tank fills and he even asked his dive buddy Phil to repaint all our tanks. Not only this he allowed us to regularly test all our new Apollo equipment at the Henderson 5m deep Dive Pool. Thanks Graham and Phil. |
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Anthony and Rob run a company that specialises in Marine Electronics Navigation Systems. When I was first looking for help to set up an email and weather fax system using high frequency marine radio these were the guys I was told to see. I went to to see They have a small team of guys that are experts in marine computing. Thanks to their help I got everything we needed to make email and weather fax work on the boat. Rob and Anthony also went one step further. They provided us with a copy of their Electronic Charting software and trained us how to use it so that we can record position information on wrecks and relics using the Geo-Systems GPS Equipment. |
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Both Steve Schultz and I work for Cognos so it was no surprise that they contributed something to our trip. We are both very thankful to Cognos for the time they have given us off work to pursue this little adventure. The biggest appreciation goes to all our work mates who have sent us words of support, especially when Black Adder got swamped. Thanks also for the jackets, one per team member. I promise to get lots of photographs for everyone to see. |
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CDP is proud to sponsor your expedition and their strive to advance the world's historical knowledge of the Auckland Islands. We have represented Cognos in New Zealand for over fifteen years and have created prominence ‘down under’ with our business solution approach, in a history of application development and now our growth market of business intelligence. We believe there’s a great parallel in your Murihiku expedition and Cognos’ achieving attitude – its all about vision and the ability to execute. As Cognos are always pushing the boundaries of software markets, such as the far-reaching effect of Business Intelligence, it's fantastic to see your commitment to exploration and documentation of the far-reaching artifacts of the Southern Hemisphere. We wish you and all of your team the best of exploits and adventures. Allen Keyte
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