Recently in New Zealand Category

For the last five days of 2007 I had the wonderful opportunity to dive at the Poor Knights Islands in New Zealand. The islands were one of my reasons for traveling to New Zealand over the holiday season and I'm happy to say that they did not disappoint. The Poor Knights Islands are located about three hours north of Auckland near the Northlands city of Tutukaka. These islands are special for several reasons. First, they're located along the EAC (The East Australia current. The one that Nemo takes a ride on in the movie. More specifically they're located on an offshoot of the EAC called the East Auckland Current) which picks up tropical fish, eggs, and larva from the Great Barrier Reef in Australia and deposits them in the Poor Knights. This causes a unique situation where tropical and subtropical fish mix together in the same environment. The second reason is that these islands are protected as a marine sanctuary, which means there is no fishing of any sorts around the island. These two aspects make for a world class subtropical dive site like no other.

I booked my diving through the main local operator, Dive! Tutukaka. I'm glad I booked ahead as most days I was out were booked solid with divers. The dive shop was located right next to the marina for easy access. The staff was experienced, friendly, and rather funny. The equipment was in good working order, and I was impressed that they had dive computers on all their setups. The dive operation was quite vast. They ran five boats of various sizes (I think five boats. Maybe 6.) which went to different locations in the area. An added bonus were the optional lunches for $10, which I found quite good. A day on the boat, two dives, full gear, and guide (if needed) ran $225 New Zealand, which seemed to be about the standard price for the area.

Going out to the islands takes about an hour from Tutukaka. On my first day out I was lucky and our boats ran across a pod of dolphins near shore. The islands are not really all that big, and it doesn't take much time to sail around them. In between dives our skippers would do a slow tour of the islands showing off its various natural wonders. These include several large arches and the world's largest sea cave (by volume). The area wasn't too busy the first couple of days, but as the holiday season kicked off the number of small private boats in the area increased significantly. Luckily this didn't impact the diving and usually we were the only boat at a particular dive site.

Much like my dive in Japan, the subtropical makeup of the Poor Knights meant a whole lot of kelp. In fact quite a bit of kelp. Kelp forests. I'd never seen so much kelp in my life and was surprised by the environment. Fish swam through the kelp, slugs hid behind leaves, and divers weeded their way through it in search of photos. Plus the swaying of the kelp was kind of hypnotic at times. The best part of the subtropical setting is that you can touch anything. Unlike a coral reef where a misplaced fin might kill 100 years of coral growth the kelp forest is durable. Not only is it near impossible to actually rip off kelp, even if you did it would grow back in a few weeks. Kudos to you kelp. For a list of all the fish, plant, and animal life found around the Poor Knights check out this webpage.

The various fish in the area were quite friendly. It was quite easy to just rest among the kelp and let the fish swim around you. In the first picture below you can see a massive school of Blue Mao Mao engulfing my dive buddy. The dive site of Blue Mao Mao arch is rather famous for attracting large schools of these fish during the day. The site is the main reason Jacques Cousteau put the Poor Knights on his top ten list of dive sites. The bottom right picture has two Mao Mao fish facing off, possibly to mate.

I was also lucky enough to see some interesting larger fish. Most days I ran across quite a few eels hanging out among the rocks. I was even lucky enough to see a carpet shark sleeping between some rocks.

The Poor Knights is also known as mating grounds for various Sting Rays. Long tailed rays, short tailed rays, and eagle rays are a very common sight around the islands. During various times of the year its possible to see hundreds of rays hanging out together on some of the outer islands. The rays I saw ranged from small baby rays, to rays well over a meter and a half in size. Very beautiful creatures to watch when swimming. For some interesting ray video check out the end of the post.

While I do love fish I became slightly obsessed with taking photos of the various nudibranchs found around the islands. Nudibranchs being sea slugs. I'd say a good 25% of all the photos I took under water were of nudibranchs. As you can see below there are quite a few different types. Some no more than a few centimeters long, while others were longer than my hands.

The first two photos below show the common clown slug in various stages of procreation. The one on the left shows a slug laying its eggs, while the one on the right shows two slugs in the act of mating. The bottom two photos are of very large slugs. You can clearly see the gills on the back of each slug.

The third day of diving I took a break from the Poor Knights and decided to do some wreck diving. Close to Tutukaka are the wrecks of the HMNZS Waikato and the HMNZS Tui which were sank just for diving fun. Both wrecks are in various states of plant and fish growth and are fun dives. The only problem for me were the murky waters and the colder temperatures. I included some video of the wrecks below, if you care to see more of them.

Some pictures of me diving. You'll notice that I'm wearing a hood and a rather thick wetsuit. Thats because the water was only 19 C at the Poor Knights, and even less at the wrecks. It was cold. Probably as cold as I could handle. Many divers were wearing dry suits, and I kind of wish I had one when diving.

Lastly some video I took while diving, in case you wanted to see some fish or sting rays in action.

I really enjoyed diving the Poor Knights. Its a wonderful spot to go diving and I'd gladly go again. One of the best aspects of the islands, at least for me, were that they weren't busy. Even though it was the peak time of the year I never felt crowded at any dive site and often felt as if I had the whole ocean to myself. I can only imagine what the area is like during the cold winter season. Maybe next time.

Technorati Tags: diving, new zealand, poor knights, scuba, slugs, String Ray, travel, whales, wreck

In one week I'll set out on a trip to New Zealand in order to do some diving at the world famous Poor Knights Islands. One of the top ten dive pots in the world. I'll be there starting December 26th and ending on January 1st. With any luck I'll also be able to squeeze in a day of diving at the Bay of Islands situated a bit north.

Before any dive I like to do a bit of online research to familiarize myself with the local plant and animal life. This way I don't sound like an idiot by asking what every fish is, but also so I can properly label photos and video when I get home. Having a good book or two in fish and plant life is never a bad idea. Its a good time killer on the bus ride or plane flight home after a day of diving. Plus it usually tends to be a social event as you and the other divers chat about the various fish you saw or the photos you took. In my case it usually end up being me explaining the english names for fish and my Japanese friends explaining the Japanese names for the exact same fish.

I recently ran across this webpage from seafriends.org.nz which has a very nice listing of plants and animals found in and around the Poor Knights Islands. I plan on printing off several of the pages so I can take them with me on my trip. The more I know about the environment I'll be diving in the better prepared I'll be when I actually get in the water. If nothing else the webpage has some really nice photos of the various sea slugs found in the area. Slugs are very weird and beautiful creatures and I look forward to taking lots of nice photos of them with my new camera setup. If I get any good ones I'll post them here!

Technorati Tags: diving, new zealand, poor knights