Diving in the Northland

So, Debby gone, it was just the two of us again. It's nice to meet up and do a bit of travelling with others but we do like it being just us two!!!

We did a bit of shopping and bought ourselves mask, snorkel and fins along with a dive bag. Rich also bought a dive computer....a bit of an extravagant purchase at this stage of our travels but it's something that is necessary for diving, as it could save your life!!!

So, off to do some diving. First stop, Matouri Bay to dive the Rainbow Warrior. This is a GreenPeace ship bombed at Auckland Harbour in 1985 by the French. They were about to protest to the french doing nuclear testing! After the bombing, the wreck was moved out to the bay of islands to be a dive sight, so some good came of it. We dived this with a guy called Gary, he was a one man band and it was just the 3 of us diving. However, it had to be done in record time as we were supposed to be going out at 6pm (after he'd finished work) but he didn't turn up till about 6.45, his van had broken down and had to be towed in!!!! Then the tractor that pulled the boat to the shore was knackered so he had to take out the starter motor, fix it and replace it!! Finally about 7.30pm we're entering the water!!!! Now, the water is a lot colder here than Fiji, and even though I had about 10 wetsuits on, it took my breath away when I first went in...but was OK when we started descending! The Rainbow Warrior was awesome....it was all very murky and dark on the way down but then all of a sudden, we were looking at the underside of it and visability was much better, we darted all around it and saw loads of pretty coral growing on it and lots of fish and some massive lobster and then back to shore!

Next day when we got up, we found that someone had nicked Rich's swimmers!!!! They'd been hanging on the washing line along with my bikini and towels and stuff....that was all there! Rich was not happy!

Next we went to Tutukaka (got some funny sounding places here, most of which we can't pronounce!!) to do a dive at Poor Knights islands. This was a far more professional get up than we'd just experienced and it was a full day out. 2 dives at different locations. Both were good and we saw a massive stringray on the first. The 2nd we had to cut a little short though as I was just too cold and Rich was sucking through his air!! But, I've now got 8 dives to my name and Rich has 16.....Rob will be pleased!!! After that day we ended up getting drunk with a couple of American guys we'd met on the dive...as you do!!! It is good when you have a random night of drinking with people you don't know....it's cool!!