Poor Knights Islands - yeah!

Captain Cousteau himself was apparently a big fan of Poor Knights Islands diving and today we were lucky enough to discover why. The small group of islands are about 15 miles off the northeastern North Island coast and are bathed by a (relatively) warm current that keeps the water temperatures mild. Hence the climate is subtropical (temp was 20C/68F) and the water is clear (visibility was at least 20m/70ft), and some typically tropical species stray south and decide to hang out for a bit. We definitely wanted to hangout for a bit longer once our last dive was over--there was a lot to see. I think in this case particularly pictures do speak many many words so you must check out the photos we have just uploaded (in Jay's picasa site)!

Due to the water clarity, light penetrates very well and kelp grows to at least 20m. The stands of Ecklonia kelp reminded us of the Laminaria forests we saw in Ireland--kelp on short but stiff stalks that allows for a nice understory of encrusting invertebrates (i.e., small, inanimate, low-profile creatures living on the rocks) like sponges, anemones, cup corals, hydroids, bryozoans, and ascidians. What struck us here in particular though was the diversity of encrusting life and their astounding colors. On a coral reef much of this life is relegated to the dark recesses of underhangs and crevices, but in the Poor Knights it is often right out in the open. The colors were so varied and so concentrated that I had trouble focusing on one thing--there was just too much to look at. Meanwhile, we were trying to keep one eye on the open water in case a big pelagic fish or manta ray decided to drop in for a visit. There are a few different species of ray that are common, and we saw a least two different kinds of stingray and a ray that looked to us like a cow-nose ray but they call an eagle ray. Often there were some big schools of fish near the surface. We had heard that since the Poor Knights are a marine reserve the fish densities tend to be very high, and I think we expected to see more big fish than we did. But we were more than content to marvel at the small stuff.

The highlight of our surface interval was going into the biggest sea cave in the world. As we were steaming to the next dive site, the captain started to veer toward what looked to us like a small cave. He wasn't slowing down much, and I was wondering if we could really fit inside this cave, but as we got closer it was evident that this was no small cave and once we were inside we were told that it was 30m/100ft to the ceiling and about 2-3 times as wide.