The place is two islands 70km off the coast of North East New Zealand, called the Poor Knights marine reservation.Two uninhabited islands that are off-limit for people and is full of life, among them a couple of species that are only found on the islands. Looking at the world map, it doesn't look that far away from Australia's nice and warm water at the Great Barrier Reef. But it is cold! Around 17-18 degrees, which was kind of a shock to the body when jumping in, brrrrrr
The captain Kevin and dive instructor Jamie were our crew on this trip aboard the boat Mazurka. It was a total scale down of what I had recently been on, both Thailand and Australia, we were only 5 costumers. There were 2 older gentlemen, who had been diving for many years around the world, Leah a young American recently certified, Maria from Finland who also had enough dives to impress the crowd.
When we introduced each other, I knew from the moment Maria pronounced her name that she was Finnish, I have heard enough Finns talk English the last 13 years, haha
Both Kevin and Jamie were from the UK, Kevin a former banker who decided to buy a dive-boat in New Zealand and Jamie who is a technical dive instructor in New Zealand, probably the only one. He was not there to tell us what to do, but could show us some cool things underwater, our own personal underwater guide. Being only 5 people that was just perfect and it turned out that the two older guys had been diving there a couple of times already and mostly took off on their own, so only 3 of us for Jamie.
I had decided to take the Nitrox course, a certificate that allows to use different air under water, allowing for longer bottom time. That required I had to go back the the basics of diving, what I learned in the very beginning when going diving... That knowledge was burried under a massive layers of 10 years of beer intake. It took some energy and motivation to get that thing going again, but after a while everything started to make sense again.
We had left the harbor at 8.30 in the morning behind all the other dive boats leaving for a one day tour only, we were going to stay anchored at the island overnight, giving us both an undisturbed night and morning dive without all the other divers.
I was now equipped with my camera and external flash, and was really hoping to get some good shots this time. A little skeptical about using the flash without the optical strobe cable . The first dive however the water was too bright and the strobe couldn't sense the flash had fired. It gave some unwanted effects in the pictures as I didn't have the diffuser on the camera. Only upper left corner of the picture was being lit up.
Didn't have too much success with the flash at all, it still didn't work. I was cursing the dive company away that had sold me that crap, but after talking to the captain, who was an underwater photographer he played around a little with it and found a setting that seemed to work. One dive I ran out of flash power, the next I ran out of camera power and the day continued like that.
I did get some pretty good pictures though, but without and some even with the flash going off. Many things I did not get a photo off, and I am a bit disappointed about not catching the 1.5 meter long spine lobster, it was huge. There were a lot of sting rays around, often when following one to take a picture of it, I stand still in the water and is being passed by another one right above me, really cool animal.
There were loads of sea urchins, the ones that have spines that will poke your skin and break off and stay inside your body. Kind of scary when floating around in a strong current trying to get a good picture in between two walls of sea urchins. 
There were plenty of stone fish too, they are really good at camouflaging themselves, some of the fish I didn't even see until Maria pointed them out to me - right next to me. They are poisonous so not that fun to put the hand on top of. They were just laying all over the place being totally innocent, but really difficult to spot unless you really look for them.
Jamie was a cave diver and The Poor Knights did have some pretty good caves to dive. We did go into a couple of them, but I can hardly say that they qualify as real caves for those with certificate to dive in caves. But still cool being in total darkness during a bright and sunny day.
Maria was very into nudibranches, some kind of weird underwater piece of snail. They came in many different shapes and colors and had I gotten my camera and flash to work, I could have taken better pictures. Next time for sure!
It was quite amazing too to see different species living closely together, offering each other different benefits. Not sure how many times this moray eel has been poked by the sea urchin, but I am pretty sure it has had some fish version of cursing going on now and then.
On one of the islands there was a cave that was big enough that the entire boat could go in, turn around and sail back out again. Not sure why would do that except to amuse the paying costumers aboard.If I should sum up the diving we did at The Poor Knight islands, it would be a picture like the last one. The visibility was great, there were plenty of different species of fish around, the underwater environment was cold but simply stunning.
We had great weather for diving, lots of different animals living in the kelp, on the walls and caves. I queried the guys for a 4 day trip when I initially contacted them, but those trips were already booked, but I managed to get on a 2 day tour. I think that was actually enough, the water is a tad too cold to enjoy a few days of diving there, even though it is super high quality dive spot. I could probably go in a couple of years again, the cold water is a little turn off, but not a biggie.I ended up passing my Nitrox course and I am now an Enriched Air Certified diver, yeah.
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