Archive for March, 2009

Tour Director Part 2

2 years ago

by dive mistress in New Zealand, Trip Reports

the weather gods just havent been with james since he has been in new zealand.

from a howling southerly storm passing through the south island while he was trying to fly fish to most probably that same storm reaching all the way up here to the north island and yes, our liveaboard on the weekend got cancelled. its a real shame – he was all signed up to complete his Advanced Open Water.

we went north anyway.

we meandered up to tutukaka on saturday stopping in at warkworth to check out the kauri farm and the museum and also taking a detour out to the best bakery in new zealand – at matakana.

sunday morning finally came and we headed out with dive! tutukaka to the poor knights.
kate had put us on calypso with the group that colin and will were teaching so we were spending the day with a good bunch of people. evan headed us out of tutukaka harbour and in the direction of the islands where we came across a rather large pod of common dolphins feeding. they had some young dolphins with them and as dive! tutukaka have a license, we were able to hang back but follow them around for quite a while.

once the dolphins had had enough of us, we altered course and started to head out towards the islands. the group that colin and will had were completing open water dives one and two so evan headed us in to south harbour. james and i were jumping in with our cameras so we got geared up first and went over the side of the boat. there was a bit of a current running through the harbour and this was james’ first tiime in a hood, long johns and jacket so we spent a bit of time in the water getting comfortable (read ditching the hood) before we descended and headed out over the boulders.
it was going to be a bit of a swim to hit magic wall so we just meandered around in the bay.

A surface interval and some lunch on the boat, then it was time for dive two. And we were in the perfect place.
If there is only one day to dive at the Poor Knights, then we try and ensure that one of those dives is at Blue Mao Mao Arch.
the arch did not dissapoint. the walls had blue fish and blue mao mao streaming up and down them. there were nudibranchs galore. and we had a wonderful (long) dive.