Cold kaleidoscope - Poor Knight Islands

We've arrived in New Zealand almost a week ago, so it's time to actual start doing something. We decided to do some diving, and the Poor Knights Island Marine reserve, seemed like the place to do so. This is one of the top dive sites in the world. Again. I wonder how often we've heard that classification now? But still, one not to missed! 

The East Australian Current (that's the one the turtles ride in Finding Nemo!) brings tropical visitors and warm water to this specific area, making it 2 degrees warmer than on shore, though still way to cold for my liking.

Biggest natural arch in the Southern Hemisphere

We went to the only dive shop in Tutukaka, and booked a dive tour for the following day. We then tried to book a bed, and found out that the affordable holiday park was fully booked. And it turned out that the way over budget hotel was fully booked as well. Oops. So we ended up near Whangarei, half an hour away, but in a lovely little hostel! 

We had an early rise the next day, did our usual fitting session and found our boat. The boat ride took about an hour. On our way there we saw huge flocks of Buller's shearwater. They were roosting on the sea surface. 

Amazing array of soft corals

Our first dive site was Splendid Arch. On our boat were 8 divers, a guide (and a skipper). A group of 4 went with the guide, and 2 buddy pairs (including us) went unguided, to spread out a bit. We got a good briefing of the site.  Our first aim was to swim over an underwater ledge, and into the confinement of the arch. Once in, it got a bit darker and we started exploring the left hand wall. This wall had loads of gorgeously coloured soft corals, nudibranches, and we spotted a small yellow moray eel looking out of it all. 

Jason's nudibranch

Then is was time to cross over to the right hand side, and explore that side while heading out of the arch. The first thing we saw was a massive scorpion fish, lying on a ledge. This was by far the biggest one I've ever seen, measuring approximately 60cm! 

Just when we were done filming and admiring him, we spotted two big crayfish. One of them had his antenna broken off, but the other one looked still in one piece. It's really amazing to see them blending in with their surroundings.

Crayfish in hiding 

   

We also spotted another one of those yellow moray eels, completely entwined in one on the rock features. We then headed out of the cave/arch into the kelp forest in front of it. Here we saw many more pelagic fish, and so, so many sea urchins, but after a good fifteen minutes I decided I was cold enough to get out of the water. Even though I had 3 layers on me (a thermal, a 7mm wetsuit and a 7mm hoodie) staying in 15'C water just isn't for me... 

Sea urchin, see the little fish next to it?

When everyone was back at the boat, we went to the second dive site: Magic Wall. We had lunch there, while listening to the seals calling: quite like a cow with a cold... Our skipper told us a bit more about the islands. Because of its isolation and lack of natural predators most of the animals grow a lot bigger. Think centipedes eating geckos, instead of the other way around. Or crickets the size of your head.... But also those huge scorpionfish! And fearless fish.

After lunch it was time to plunge, oh my, that was cold! Because it was overcast, we hadn't really gotten to warm in between dives, so the second dive felt even colder. After swimming past one of the seals, who didn't care about our attempts to coax him into the water, we submerged again.  

We navigated through the kelp until we got to the wall. And it looked even more colourful that the first site! Loads of macro stuff. Little hopper fish, amazingly bright patches of corals and anemones, and fish fights... 

The garden in front of the wall. 

Unfortunately I had some problems with my ears, so we decided not to go much deeper. We missed out on the big moray eels, but we  both spend 10 minutes just staring at our own patch of 20 by 20 cm of the wall, amazed at how much happens at such a small area. We swam back to the kelp garden at the bay, being surrounded by thousands of jelly fish... We had a good look around there, and then got out of the water. It was really time to put on some dry, warm clothes. 

P.S. Due to the lack of light most of our photos and video didn't come out very well, but you can watch a short video here. 

Isolated bunch of kelp