June 23, 2006 - Poor Knights

So Little Darlin and I awoke before sparrows fart (04:30 in case you are interested when the the sparrows start farting), grabbed a piece of toast, jumped in the trusty dive wagon (an old Subaru Legacy wagon-once again just in case you were wondering) and headed off on another exciting journy to the Tutukaka coast, and The Poor Knights Islands Marine reserve.

As I may or may not have said in past blogs the Poor Knights hold some of my favourite dive sites, and since diving there Little Darlin is a convert also.

We rocked up to the dive shop an hour earlier than need be, signed all the pieces of paper that say we wont sue if the kill us, then threw our gear on the boat.

As we left Tutukaka Heads we were greeted by 2-3 metre swells and the prospect of a looong slow journey. Little Darlin was gripping on for dear life and rather terrified to start with but as soon as we reached the lee of the islands she calmed down a little and let go of the, now dented-with a Little Darlin size hand print, saftety rail.

We decided to gear up first and get in the water before the others, because every time we come out here we decide to let the majority go before us so we have a little deck space but they always seem to wait until we gear up then start gearing up all at once.

We splashed into the water at Middle Arch having decided that we would visit Bernie's Cave. We swam over to the wall and dropped down right on top of the cave entrance to about 20 metres viz. The cave tops of at 8msw and bottoms out at about 15msw. Looking at my wrist computer I noticed it hadnt switched on automatically as it should have. By this stage LD was already halfway in the cave so I followed her through untill we reached the Air Bubble. We surfaced inside the bubble, at a depth of 8 metres, and I told her about my computer and that I would have to go to the surface to try switch it on. We moseyed out of the cave and while I went to the surface while LD stayed at about 8 metres to wait. I hit the surface and checked to see if LD was all good then tried switching on my Vyper. No joy. Oh well. We had a hard bottom at 15 metres so I wasn't too bothered about it. Dropping back down I met up with LD, who by this stage had discovered about 5000 different types of nudibranchs, and we moved off in the direction of the archway.

Inside the arch we encountered upon masses of schooling demoiselles and snapper. The tend to hide in the arch ways so the big sea birds can't dive bomb them and take some of their number at random. Just inside the entrance LD started waving madly and as I moved over to look I seaw a pair of Lord Howe Coral Fish. These fish are not native in our waters as it is a little too cold for them- kinda like a monkey in the arctic. These Lord Howe Coral Fish get swept down to the Knights as juveniles by the East Auckland current, which is a warm water current that sweeps down past Norfolk and Lord Howe Islands, across the top of New Zealand and down the East coast untill it hits White Island, then sweeps back out into the Pacific Ocean. It's too cold for these warm water fish to breed here but they do tend to last a few seasons so it is always a delight to see them.

We discovered many yellow moray, Scorpian fish and a huge grouper. After an hour or so of exploring we decided we would head back up. I have to admit the cold was a factor in this for me as I have definantly acclimatised to the warmer Auckland waters. Cant see myself diving in the Cook Strait again for some time-not without buying some warmer uynderwear for my drysuit anyway.

We got back on the boat and were greeted with a nice steaming cup of Milo (hot chocolate for all you non-kiwis) and some beautiful sunshine. We had an hour or so for lunch, cruised through Riko Riko Cave in the boat, then anchored up in The Gardens ready for our next dive.

We dropped down onto a nice reef structure at about 14 metres, (Oh btw I borrowed a depth guage) surrounded by sand and bommies, and swam down onto the bottom looking for rays on the sand. Sadly we didnt see any so I am guessing the Orca's had been through recently but we did see some nice Tambja Verconis nudibranch. These particular nudi's are a brilliant yellow and blue colour as can be seen here. We also found a few Tamja Morosa as seen here, and some Jason Miriballis hanging out on their favourite food, the Hydroid Tree. Little Darlin seems to be able to fiind any Nudi anywhere!

After 50 minutes the cold starting biting through my drysuit so we decided to head up and back to a warm cup of Milo.