Northland The Sisters

DESCRIPTION

Dive Site Review by Russ Hughes
Photos by Andrew Simpson

Diving in the Bay of Islands is fantastic. With a wealth of sites to choose from you are spoilt for choice. With well known shipwrecks and deeper sites to boot this diver’s playground really can support skill levels from beginner to advanced technical. My partner and I were fortunate enough to spend a week diving some of the sites and one in particular stands out for us as a favorite of the trip.

The Sisters is a rock formation outside of Deep Water Cove where the Canterbury wreck was sunk. You come around past Kariparipa point and you are presented with a pair of offshore pinnacles rising no more than 5m out of the sea. On top its pretty baron but that isn’t what we are interested in now is it. The important thing is that it’s large enough to provide shelter from the wind on one side at any given time and its proximity to the coast affords divers the chance to get a dive here when other less sheltered spots like Bird Rock may not be possible. This is not to say that it should play second fiddle as we found out.

We splashed in the morning as the first dive of the day on the site. There was a light swell rolling through so our skipper positioned the RIB on the leeward side of the rock and put down the pick. We dropped down into about 15m of water and the viz was good enough that we could make out the slope straight away. We cruised down through a very fishy medley of Demoiselles, small Snapper, Maomao and other schools towards the 35m mark gradually following the curve in topography until we were met by fingers of rock with bright sandy bottoms. We tracked along until meeting our planned depth of 45m and peered through cubbie holes in the fingers to try and spot Morays and anything too shy to come out in the daylight.

The deep blue of the water ahead meeting the bright white sand provided great contrast and as we slowly tracked our way back towards our ascent point we saw a great deal of small crustaceans living on the corals at that depth feeding vigorously on whatever drifted into their grasp. We hit our deco and moved up through the water stopping as we did to complete our time.

Post dive I remarked that it was nice and pleasant to do but would prefer to see more sites tomorrow claiming wrongly that we must have seen the majority of what was on offer. I was wrong!

The next day we were blown out on the bird and the swell had picked up a lot. Grudgingly I accepted another dive at the sisters and we set about it. There was no pick this time and we dropped straight off the boat and down for a good 10m before we saw the bottom this time moving steadily towards us like a field to a skydiver.

It was a stark contrast to the writhing sea above when we settled at depth. A smooth slope interspersed with overhanging portions and bright corals illuminated by our lights. We swam a section and doubled back and to my surprise were confronted by a huge boulder garden acting like a fortress for even more schools of fish and the wrecked remains of poorly placed cray pots, their floats torn away by the water above. In my head I was kicking myself for claiming I had “seen” this site and I was further proved wrong as we continued our ascent being met by a huge school of Kingfish which circled us for the start of our deco, moving in perfect formation against the backdrop of that deep blue water.

We got back on the rib and headed back to Te Uenga bay, all the time I was remembering the shimmering school enveloping our small team as we ascended. A truly great dive to finish on for us and I hope you all find the same if you dive here.

In summary this site offers diving from the 15-20m mark but really comes into its own a little deeper maxing out at 45m ish (as far as I know!). It is very fishy as you would expect from an offshore pinnacle and has a great range of topographical features. Be aware that you may have to come up away from your anchor line as there can be current so you should be proficient with an SMB to make this dive.