The Poor Knights

The next day we pressed on the Poor Knights Islands.  They are land and marine sanctuaries.  So humans are not allow ashore and fishing is not allowed.  However, the islands are very rugged and scenic (that again) and it's a well known dive spot.   We went to a protected bay, but at 75ft, it was too deep for us to anchor.  The weather was calm and sunny, and the sea was sapphire blue.  The islands are high and rocky.  The shore is mostly stone walls that go straight up, and there are many, many sea caves, both above and below the surface.

There was one very large (80ft) sailboat anchored and a couple dive boats inside the cave.  Yes, inside the Riko Riko cave.  It's big and can hold several boats.


So we moved on to Tutukaka.  It was a busy place due to a fishing tournament, so we anchored in the outer bay and dinghied ashore.  We booked a dive at Poor Knights the next day.  Well, the weather turned bad the next day.  The entrance to Tutukaka is very rocky and rough in bad weather.  Not all the competitors could get out to fish, which must have been really miserable anyway.  The dive boat was quite large and capable of handling the seas, but the driver had a lot of work to manuver the boat through the seas.

The diving is different than the tropics, with little hard coral, some soft coral, lots of weeds, with beautiful colorful fish and other sea creatures everywhere.