{"id":708,"date":"2021-06-01T05:20:02","date_gmt":"2021-06-01T05:20:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/divehq.co.nz\/blog\/?p=708"},"modified":"2021-06-01T05:20:02","modified_gmt":"2021-06-01T05:20:02","slug":"easter-2021-dive-trip-to-poor-knights-and-bay-of-islands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/divehq.co.nz\/blog\/easter-2021-dive-trip-to-poor-knights-and-bay-of-islands\/","title":{"rendered":"Easter 2021 Dive Trip to Poor Knights and Bay of Islands"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you asked divers where one of the places in New Zealand that they wanted to dive is, people
\nnormally say either Poor knight Islands or Fiordland.\u00a0We decided to choose the Poor Knights and 9 divers from Christchurch meet at Auckland airport
\nwhere we had arranged transport north to Russel. On our way north we experienced the Auckland
\ntraffic delays, had a flat tyre before making it to Northland Dive where we would be based.
\nEveryone was excited about the next 5 days of diving we had ahead of us. The plan for the first two
\ndays of the trip was to dive locally from the Northland Dive base which included, the wreck of the
\nCanterbury and local northland reefs.<\/p>\n

The obvious difference from diving around Christchurch and Banks Peninsular (apart from visibility)
\nwas the fish life. \u00a0You could see the big Snapper from the boat and when you entered the water, we
\nsaw schools of Blue Mao Moa and Kingfish cruising past. The first dive was a check out dive. This was
\nan opportunity to make sure all our gear was feeling good and fine tuning our weights and dive
\nsetup. We had two divers using side mount equipment and everyone else on single tank setup.
\nThe Canterbury is a fantastic shipwreck which sits upright on the ocean floor making navigation
\naround the wreck relatively easy. For those that have been on one of the Dive HQ Trips to the
\nMikhail Lermontov can relate to this as everything on the Lermontov is on its side.
\nThe best thing about the Canterbury Shipwreck is that it was sunk for divers and has made an
\nawesome artificial reef attracting fish life all around it. We ended up diving the Canterbury twice and
\non the second day this was one of my most enjoyable dives of the trip, we started at the stern and
\nheading towards the bow swimming along the length of the wreck through one of the corridors on
\ndeck level 2.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

On the morning of day three we got aboard the Sea Spy, where we were to spend the next 3 days
\ndiving off and sleeping on the boat at the Poor Knight Islands. As we arrived at the islands the fish
\nlife had gone up another two notches, seeing bigger Snapper, trevally mouthing on the surface and
\nbig schools of Blue all seen from the surface.<\/p>\n

Once we entered the water you soon realised why this was one of Jacques Cousteau\u2019s top 10 dive
\nlocations in the world. Each dive offered something unique and memorable. Blue Maomao Arch,
\nwhere massive schools of Maomao just sit forming a fish arch, massive drop offs into deep blue
\nwater where if you are as lucky as Steve, Mark and Morne you will see a shark cruise underneath
\nyou. Cathedral Cave, where you see large groups of fish huddled inside and a whale jaw sitting at the
\nback of the cave. This dive was very memorable for the fact that when Paul and I left the cave
\nentrance we got caught up in massive schools of Blue and Pink Maomao, Demoiselle, and bait fish
\nwhile on the fridge were Snapper, Kingfish and Trevally. All this was happening at 5m to the surface.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In all we completed 11 dives at the Poor Knight Islands and 4 dives around the Northland dive base.
\nFor me personally though by far the best dive of the trip was diving the Northern Arch. What made it
\nso special was the sting rays that were stacked up about 10 deep moving backwards and forwards\u00a0under the arch. This is an occurrence that happens every 4 to 6 years and the stingrays will be there\u00a0for about 3 months. Unfortunately, the photos do not give the dive its full justice.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I cannot wait to return for our next trip booked from 28 th September through to 4 th October. Who
\nwants to join us?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"
\nSee you out diving soon,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you asked divers where one of the places in New Zealand that they wanted to dive is, people normally say either Poor knight Islands or Fiordland.\u00a0We decided to choose the Poor Knights and 9 divers from Christchurch meet at Auckland airport where we had arranged transport north to Russel. On our way north we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":713,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/divehq.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/divehq.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/divehq.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/divehq.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/divehq.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=708"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/divehq.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":715,"href":"http:\/\/divehq.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708\/revisions\/715"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/divehq.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/divehq.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/divehq.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/divehq.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}