Hello from Aotearoa!

Well, Thank you, Chris, for inviting me to this! I work for a law firm in Auckland (don't start me off on lawyers!), and we are officially closed until next week, but working in IT means I'm in early and bored witless...

So, I see all of your emails about this blog (why do I hear nothing for months and then suddenly you're all yammering away?!) and so have something interesting to do! Yey!

As Frank mentioned, we dived the Poor Knights 27-29th of December, and, WOW, you all need to give it a go! It is a little like the Red Sea in the colour and amount of life, and the vis can be excellent, but the life is in pockets in certain areas and around pinnacles, rather than everywhere.

Huge shoals of fish, blue maomao, snapper, trigger fish 2 spot demoiselles and many more follow you around the reefs as your fins kick minute particles of algae off the kelp. If you stop, they frequently surround you. There are eagle rays, short tailed rays and long tailed rays up to 2 metres across with tails 3 times as long as their bodies. There are also several marine frogs, about 1 foot across, but they don't move much...

There's even the odd John Dory or two floating around. Mighty tasty eating, but the Knights are a marine reserve. They are extremely unafraid (not to mention slow) and will swim right next to you.

I even got bitten on the knuckles by a demoiselle defending it's eggs as I was carelessly pointing out an orange and white nudibranch to Brendon, ouch! The eggs are hard to see and look like small air bubbles on the rocks.

There are many caves, crevices and arches to explore and the sea bed varies from ancient volcanic rock covered in kelp to white sand.

I would show you some photos, but I gave up trying to focus my MX-10 many years ago (no comments, Chris!).

Water temp was about 23 on the surface and 17-18 whilst diving, but it's been a really odd and slow Summer this year, it should be much warmer.

And, Frank, they are called the Poor Knights because apparently Captian Cook thought they looked like 2 dead knights lain to rest. Personally, I think he was on drugs or had bloody bad eyesight (or both!). There are 2 main islands and they are pretty spectacular. They include the worlds largest sea-cave. As our 45 foot cat, Knight Diver, entered, I thought I was looking at 2 radio controlled boats inside. Then I realised that there were people on them! I didn't appreciate the scale of the cave. Dropping a dive weight onto the metal deck behind us sounded like a shotgun going off, the acoustics are amazing! Apparently, they've had mini music concerts on boats in there.

From the boat on the journey between Tutukaka and the Knights, you can see dolphin, shark, whales and sunfish. I didn't understand just how large sunfish can be - they are monstrous!

We also regularly dive in the Hauraki Gulf from our boat, leaving from Takapuna across to the large Volcanic island (hopefully extinct) called Rangitoto, past the next 2 islands, Motutapu and Rakino and then to a group of small islands and rocks referred to as The Noisies. You can still see some great sights and there are a lot of maze-like ancient lava flows to explore, you can get quite lost :-)

A nice, big goody-bag gets used for scallop and crayfish...

Speaking of our boat, I couldn't resist adding some pics. It's called, of course, "Red Sea" and is a 5.4m Fyran Rebel with a 90hp Yamaha 2-stroke. If you look very closely at the GPS you'll see where we live...

Did I mention that the water temp mid-Winter was about 12 degrees? 7mm heaven...

Surprisingly, dive shops over here are very limited on spares and nick-nacks. So, when are you coming out and bringing us some stuff?!