Diving the Poor Knight Islands

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Home Page > Travel > Exotic Locations > Diving the Poor Knight Islands

Diving the Poor Knight Islands

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Posted: Oct 31, 2008 |Comments: 0
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Diving the Poor Knight Islands

At seven o’clock in the morning I woke up and went to have breakfast. The weather didn’t look too promising, but we didn’t let that stop us. There were dark clouds overhead and it was raining, but who cares about raining when you are underwater! Everyone else was up so daddy, Felix and I started to prepare for the trip that was to come. Once we had our swimmers on we packed the backpack with everything we would need that day. We each brought our cameras and my dad packed some chocolate.

We drove out of the hotel and directly to the Dive Tutukaka shop. When we arrived we filled out some forms and then they suited us up with, 3 wetsuits, gloves, boots, flippers and a hood. Once we had all the equipment we needed, we walked across the road to the marina where the 80 foot Perfect Day dive and cruise boat awaited us. There were 24 other people on the boat but not all of them were diving. Some of them were snorkeling and some of them were just there for the cruise.

Craig, the captain aboard the boat gave us a safety briefing of the boat and introduced us to the crew. It was long 45 minute ride out to the islands pounding against the huge swell all the way. On the way there, we got to know our dive master Evan. Once we were inside a protected bay Craig stopped the boat. It took the crew about five minutes to anchor the boat on all sides before the boat was secure. Then Craig came up stairs to give us a site briefing.

The dive site was called Magic Wall because when the depth dropped from six to fifteen meters, the wall was home to a variety of fish and sponges. He explained some of the marine life that we could see there and when he finished he told all of the divers to go downstairs to get ready. Because I had three wetsuits they were pretty hard to get on. It took us at least ten minutes to get completed suited up and another three minutes in the water to check our buoyancy. And finally when we were all set and ready to go, we went down.

It was a shallow dive site, the max depth being only fifteen meters, but Evan said we would be able to see everything just fine from twelve meters. We slowly went along the “Magic” wall and Evan showed us everything he saw. He pointed out some moray eels, nudibranchs, and I spotted a short tailed stingray in the distance. We also saw a couple scorpionfish camouflaged in the rocks. The water was the perfect temperature for kelp and it thrived along the sea floor. If you got low enough you wouldn’t be able to see anything through the thick kelp. We stayed underwater for 45 minutes and then we surfaced. I still had 120 bar left when we surfaced. When I was back onboard I took my wetsuits off and had a hot shower. Then, once everybody was back on board the vessel we started to move again. He told us that we would take a little cruise to the next dive location while we warmed up. He told us a little bit about the history of the Poor Knight Islands and took us to some of the historic sites. On the cruise, we went through the biggest arch in the southern hemisphere and into the largest sea cave in the world. It took us 40 minutes before we arrived at the next dive site and again he gave us a site briefing. This spot was called Blue MaoMao Cave and from where we were anchored you could clearly see the cave. Again, I suited up in my three wetsuits and my BCD before I jumped into the chilly water with my brother, daddy and Evan. Evan checked all of us before we went down to the rocky bottom. He led us under a boulder and into the cave. There were millions of Blue MaoMao! As we slowly swam through the giant cloud of fish they separated from each other and ran away. We swam along the cave wall and Eric showed us more interesting creatures and objects. He found us a few more nudibranchs and pointed out some neat sponges. We stayed underwater for another 45 minutes before we surfaced for the last time. We lifted ourselves and our heavy suits aboard the boat and then took of our suits to have a nice hot shower. After everybody was settled, Craig alerted us that we were going to head back to Tutukaka. I had another cup of hot soup and we talked with some of the other divers about the amazing experience he had shared as we cruised on back to Tutukaka.

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Article Tags:
poor knight islads, diving, new zealand, 12 years old, ben, 15 degrees, cold water diving

Diving the Poor Knight Islands

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