Kaitlyn picked us up in a rented car – called “el cheapo” by the rental agency and we started on our way. We drove up on Friday night to find Bruce’s barn, which is an old airport hangar with a really basic kitchen (fridge, burners, sink), a bathroom with a propane tank for heating up shower water, and an upstairs full of old couches and a few mattresses to sleep on. It was really basic and I didn’t like it at first, but by the second night it started to grow on me. The barn was really hard to find, because we had to drive up to Whangarei and then off a couple of side roads, through a break in a fence and on a track through a field.
We got up early Saturday morning, (I brought yogurt and granola- which Kiwi’s call muesli- for breakfast) and headed down to the boat. We went out on Crayzee Diver with Captain Bruce. It has room for 10 divers and the captain on board. It’s about a 40 minute drive out to the Poor Knights Islands, which are incredible islands with TONS of fish life because they’re a marine reserve. The islands are sheer cliffs with tons of caves and archways, formed by volcanoes. They’re also really cool because the water drops off really deep pretty close to the base of the cliffs.
Our first dive of the day was to Nursery cove, which was only about 40 feet deep. There were lots of two-spot damselfish, as well as moray, and I saw my first stingray! Kaitlyn was also trying to point out a large scorpionfish, which look a lot like a rock, and I thought she was pointing to the teeny tiny fish on top of the scorpion fish, so I almost put my hand right on it! I guess they have spines that will inject you with poison if you touch their back. Good thing I didn’t touch it!
Then we took a lunch break (I brought pita bread with veggies and hummus) and it was back into the water! Our next dive was called Gentle Forest/Fred’s Pinnacle, because there was a pinnacle rock that we swam out from a wall to go see. There was also a neat swim-through which had a starfish at the bottom. I was really surprised by the number of sea urchins- both light brown and rounder and dark brown and very prickly. This dive was to about 65 feet.
After our second dive Bruce took us into the largest sea cave in the world—one you can drive your boat right into! It was SO COOL!
Saturday night we decided to go watch fish being weighed in at a dock in Whangarei. We saw a few large striped marlin get weighed in- the largest for the day was 114.8 kg (which is about 250 pounds). We also saw kingfish being weighed in. There were different categories for largest fish, most species, etc. but the contest was really neat because it was for small boats only (under 8.6 meters, which is 28 feet)! Then we got pizza at a pizza shop right at the marina, went back to the barn and had an early night.
Today we got up and drove back down to the marina. Our first dive site of the day at the Poor Knights Islands was Sterling Cave. On this dive I also got to see two stingrays following each other. We followed them for a bit but they were getting really deep. There were also more moray eels and a cave that we went into just for a second, because it was dark and we didn’t have any torches. I also got to see 2 Lord Howe Coralfish (google it—I didn’t get a picture) and a school of pink mao mao. This dive was about 65 feet deep and really awesome!
The final and best dive of the trip out to the Poor Knights Islands was to Blue Mao Mao Arch. First of all it’s incredible because it’s in a naturally formed arch, which sticks out of the water as part of the island. Underwater, right in the center of the arch there’s a swim through, so we swam up through it into a school of literally THOUSANDS of two spot damsels and blue mao mao. I’ve never seen so many fish in my life, all swimming together. At times it was hard to see because there were just so many! They circle the archway so you can follow them out. You can also definitely feel the current around the arch (we dove at slack tide). I also took some awesome videos, but I’m not sure how to get those online. This was by far the best dive I’ve ever done- I loved all the fish, at times you can totally get swept away swimming with them and just lose track of everything else in the world.
After that, we drove the boat through a bunch of arches- some of them are big enough to drive a boat through,and I guess they all have really great diving, as long as you're aware of the tides because the current can sweep through some of them quite quickly.
Now I know why the Poor Knights are one of the top diving spots in the world- they’re truly incredible. To see some more of my pictures (I took over 500!) go here: http://www5.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=3428702026/a=5301477026_5301477026/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/
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