Kauri forest and diving like Cousteau
Trip Start
Dec 18, 2006
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66
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Trip End
May 04, 2007
Whangarei, New Zealand
Friday, April 6, 2007
By 8:30am, we were on a leisurely cruise towards the "Poor Knights Marine Reserve". Noble was on the same boat as her cruise had been cancelled without notice. The first port of call was Rika Rika Cave, the world's largest sea cave (rumour has it that nobody else bothered to measure other caves so NZ retains that "title").
I was teamed up with two other divers and slowly submerged into the magical world of Oceania
Getting ready to dive
. We made our way along the steep walls into the cave which inhabited an abundance of life (as it is a fully protected marine reserve). In the middle of the cave is a rock called the "Matterhorn" (the reason being is rather self-explanatory) which houses a number of cleaning stations for fish. The light under water was just magical as it was during a sunny day but in the "twilight zone" between the cave and the open ocean. It was deep blue with rays of light "piercing" through the water!After yet another sandwich lunch, we headed to our second dive and highlight of the day. Although it is a "signature" dive (number 7 of Cousteau's Top Ten Dive Sites in the World), it is absolutely brilliant! It is called the "Blue Mao-mao" (after the fish located there) and consists of a 45m archway. To get there, we had to brave a 30m channel with strong currents and dive underneath boulders but it turned out to be one of the best dives I ever did. We dove through the archway twice as it was so beautiful - in one end, a window sheds light into the archway making the "cave" light up like a cathedral.
On the way back, we "lost" our buddy in the strong currents so the remaining buddy and me did the required 1 minute search before surfacing - hoping the other buddy did the same. Unfortunately, he didn't as he battled the current and went straight back to the boat (which we found out later). We called for help from the boat and slowly swam back through the surge looking for our buddy (and spotting huge long-tail stingrays cruising at the bottom of the channel below us).
Although a bit scared from the "loss" of our buddy, it had been a glorious day yet again and diving was just stunning!! It would've been great to stick around for another day of diving but we had a huge highlight ahead of us - meeting the Hugglestones in Auckland!!
