Riding to Stand Still

12
Mar

For reasons of which I’m not quite sure, New Zealand has erased any since of direction in my possession, not that there was much to begin with. I’m having an amusingly difficult time keeping track of which side of the island I’m on.

At this moment, however, I’m certain that I am in Tutukaka on an absolutely beautiful stretch of the Northeastern Coast.

Read Scott Parsons full blog here.

I spent today Scuba Diving about 25km east, off the coast, in the Poor Knights Islands.
The Poor Knights, it was claimed by Jacques Cousteau, are among the 10 best diving locations in the world. I’ve not dived in 10 different locations total, so they are certainly in my own personal top ten.
The islands themselves are the greatly eroded remnants of an ancient, giant volcano. The resulting volcanic rock formations allow for numerous caves, archways and tunnels. In that regard (caves, arches and tunnels) they are quite similar to the Channel Islands off the coast of California.
They enjoy a greater degree of environmental protection than the Channel Islands in the sense that no one is allowed to set foot upon the Poor Knights. That allows a perfectly isolated ecosystem and the plant and animal life living upon them, in many cases, is unique to this small group of islands.
As a Scuba diver, the benefit of all of the protection is that there is no fishing near the islands so the water is literally teeming with fish of many colorful types.
At times, navigation is difficult due in part to the remarkable density of fish swimming around you and due also to the thick kelp forest growing from the ocean floor. Beneath the leaves of the kelp lies a large population of Rays and Eels (I saw many Rays, including the largest Eagle Ray any of the divers or dive staff had seen before).

As I mentioned, there are numerous rock formations (both above and below the water. One of the highlights was that we took the boat (a 45ft dive boat) into the largest sea cave in the world.
The above water portion of the cave is a perfect dome shape offering excellent acoustics. In the recent past, the guitarist from the band Crowded House chartered the boat I dived from today and played a private (for himself and the lucky staff on the boat with him) concert within the cave. Not having any musical talent among the divers today, we simply shouted and stomped our feet. Not quite a professional concert, but entertaining in its own way.

For more information

http://ridefastbikes.wordpress.com/2011/03/12/dive-tutukaka/