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richhagelin

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Location
Spokane, WA
Going to make 4 stops in New Zealand in early April 2020. We are going to stop at Wellington, Napier, Tauranga, and Auckland. Which is the best stop to dive? Recommendations for dive operators. I am an experienced diver with 500+ dives mostly in Caribbean.

Rich Hagelin
 
I’m sure some locals could chime in with a more thorough response, but I would highly recommend taking some time when your in Auckland to head up to the poor knights if you can spare the time. Some of my favourite dives ever. Dove with Yukon dive charter which looked highly preferable to the comparably overstuffed dive Tutukaka boat as I prefer smaller more personalized dive ops.

North of Wellington you could do kapiti island, which I enjoyed but nowhere near in the same class as Poor Knights.

I see your from WA so I imagine your used to PNW water temps, I’d likewise suggest drysuit for NZ as it will definitely make your dives more comfortable. I think rental suits were 5mm but I’m glad to have bothered to haul the drysuit halfway around the globe.

White Island is probably a no go right about now :)
 
Hi Rich
I'm based in Wellington. If I can help then let me know. April is "cooler" in NZ but you would probably get away with a 5mm 2 pc (depending upon natural insulation). I have both a 5mm and a 7mm 2pc and a dry suit (3mm compressed), but use the 7mm in summer (and there is not much of me).
Depending how long you have in each place there are some interesting dive opportunities.
Let me know if I can help.
Cheers'
John
 
I will chime in and ask, we are there in Feb-Mar 2021, not cold water divers but for something special we will make exceptions, we will be coming from Aus where we have 7 days on a live aboard in the GBR (mike ball), then two full day dives near Adelaide to see the leafy/weedy sea-dragons but we are always interested in peoples thoughts and opinions, should we add some dives in NZ and if so where do you recommend (Poor Knights was our original thought but all the dive ops seemed to be cramming to many people in for our liking, I will look at Yukon dive charter)
 
Maybe I've just been lucky with Poor Knights, but the two trips I've done with Dive Tutukaka have been in mid-summer tourist season, and there's only been 6-7 passengers on board one of their bigger boats with 2 guides between us. Hardly crammed and overcrowded.

Also based in Wellington, but diving locally here is really hit or mess depending on the weather in my experience. I never bother booking boat dives more than 2 days in advance.
 
Hi Peter. If I had to choose two dive sites in NZ they would probably be Poor Nights and Doubtful Sound. Doubtful is quite difficult to get to, and the charters fill a long way in advance (they are overnight charters). The whole journey is a once in a life time trip.
Irrespective of the number of the people on the charter, if you can get to Poor Knights you won't regret it..
 
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