Day 9- Poor Knights Island Dive

Carol gave me the day off to go diving. I had to get up at 6:15 am to drive down to Tutukaka and go diving with Dive! Tutukaka (http://www.diving.co.nz/poorknights.htm). It was a glorious morning, and I saw very few cars as I drove over winding country roads.

Poor Knights is a group of "islands"- big rocks- that is part of an extinct volcano. It's about 25 km off shore, and it is one of Jacques Cousteau's top 10 dive destinations. it is cool water dive- the water is in the low 70's. There isn't any coral or many tropical fish, but they do have lots of pretty stuff to see. Of note were:

Manta Rays- the first I've seen. One was over 6 feet in wingspan, with a huge long tail. I was about 3 feet from it. I spooked it and it swam off.

Kelp Fields- they have beautiful kelp that is only about 3 feet tall.

Blue Mao Mao fish- these are 1-2 foot fish that are very blue.

The second dive was especially memoriable- going through the Blue Mao Mao arch, light was coming in from above and there were hundreds of Mao Mao's swimming through with us. It was like a TV nature show. My dive partner Chris took some pictures, hopefully we'll get a few posted here.

-Rich