Poor Knights Matts Crack
DESCRIPTION
Dive site review by Anna Clague
Photos by Axel Busch
This has to be an iconic site for photographers as it produces an awesome silhouette shot. The light coming into the crack in the afternoon allows the camera to capture a stunning highlighted blue glow with the dark of the cracks walls framing it. If you can get a diver to model with a torch beam flashing at you, all the better for this shot.
The crack is about 60m long and at the open end, is about 15m deep. It is open to the surface the whole length of the crack. The Island creates one side of the wall and the other side is created by a reef finger that starts above water, descends after about 10m meters, and continues underwater for about 50 meters. The top of this reef finger slowly gets deeper, with the average of around 5-8m – a great place to enjoy your safety stop. The crack itself is like diving in a hallway with two beautifully decorated walls. The boulder strewn floor is covered with all the wildlife and plant life that you would expect to find in the Marine Reserve. Scorpionfish, Stingrays, Eels, Toadstool Grouper, Triplefins, Blennies, Crayfish, Demoiselles, Snapper, Maomao, Wrasses, Nudibranchs, Sponges, Corals, Anemones, Kelp, Sea Rimu, Sea Lettuce, Red and Green Algae can all be found inside and outside of the crack.
Inside the crack it bottoms out at about 16-18 meters and slowly ascends as you make you way in towards the back of the crack where it also narrows in a little. The open end of the crack is approx 10m wide and it gradually narrows to a still comfortable 3m wide. If you head over the reef finger to the outside of the wall you will see it drop off fairly sharply and this continues down to Advanced and Technical diver depths so keep an eye on your computer or gauges to remain within your training and experience levels.
We dived this site on the October Poor Knights Liveaboard as the conditions allowed us to get to the Eastern side of the islands. There were some amazing Jellyfish that had bloomed in the Reserve which were definitely the stinging type – very beautiful so long as you didn’t get too friendly!!
