Diving New Zealand (North Island) – January 2024 by Alan McElroy – Part One
Sally and I decided to get away for the winter and went on a 4 week holiday to New Zealand. We flew from Heathrow to Singapore (14 hrs) and after a 24hr stop over, flew to Auckland (10 Hrs) in the North Island. We then had a short 2hr flight to Queenstown in the far south island to pick up a motor home for a bit of touring.
The South Island has stunning scenery, with the Southern Alps mountain range as its backbone stretching along the majority of its length. From Queenstown we drove to the Fiordland National Park and did an overnight cruise on Doubtful Sound for some fishing and kayaking but no diving. If you’re in the area there is diving at Milford Sound, a similar fiord along the coast where drysuits and all kit can be hired. For the next 2 weeks, we then took the motor home up the west coast through the mountains to the port of Picton for a 3hr ferry to the North Island. We did not dive in the South island but did brave a snorkel or two in a couple of glacier lakes in a 7mm wetsuit.
On arrival in the North island we headed to the stunning beaches of the Coromandel coast stopping en-route at Rotorua’s geothermal area. We did some snorkelling off the beach, not the greatest vis but a nice eagle ray was spotted. There are a few diving operators in the Coromandel but we didn’t have enough time to use them as we had to head back to Auckland to drop off the Motorhome.
Bay of Islands
Picking up a car in Auckland we headed north to our first dive destination in the Bay of Islands and the small town of Paihia, for 4 days of diving with Paihia Dive. The dive shop was 2 minutes from our accommodation and 3 minutes from the wharf and their hard-boat.
Each day started in the dive shop where the dive kit was sorted and put on trolleys for wheeling to the boat. Sally and I took our own kit, me with a 7mm wetsuit and Sally with a 5mm suit.
The Bay of Islands, made up of no less than 144 islands with many reefs, caves and wall dives plus 2 iconic wrecks that have become artificial reefs. The majority of the diving was on terrain that is volcanic in origin. These included wall dives, caves and caverns, swim throughs and crevasses. Attached to the rocks and boulders are kelp which grows to about 1.5m high, similar to the UK. The water temperature was also similar to the UK summer with temperatures ranging from 17c to 21c but visibility was much better averaging about 15 to 20+ metres.
We dived a number of reefs with names such as White Reef, Putahataha Island, The Nostrils reef and Boulder reef. The fish life was amazing, with some sites being like swimming in an aquarium. The fish are not as colourful as the red sea but still stunning with Morays, Pig fish, Moki, Wrasse and Scorpion fish seen on every dive with a smattering of Sting rays and Eagle rays on most dives.
Canterbury Wreck
On dive days 2 and 4 we dived the former Navy Frigate, Canterbury which is the sister ship to the Scylla in Plymouth. The Canterbury was sunk for diving and sits upright on the sea bed at 36mt with a permanent shot placed centrally on the mast. On the first dive (day 2) we went down the shot to the deck and swam to the stern at about 30mts then back up along the deck to the helicopter hanger at 27mts. We then ascended up the superstructure peering into the bridge before heading back to the shot for our safety stop.
For our 2nd dive on the Canterbury (day 4) we made our way to the bow at 20mts, which was covered in pink, blue and purple jewel anemones. We then made our way along the upper deck, past the bridge and along passageways before ascending back up the shot. We could have done a few swim throughs as the wreck is very clean and has little silt in it, but Sally preferred that we stayed on the outside and not go into the dark passages even though their were many clear exit routes.
In part two read about Alan and Sally’s dives on the wreck of the famous Rainbow Warrior, Greenpeace’s flagship that was sunk by French saboteurs on July 10, 1985.