Poor Knights Islands
The greatest dive on Earth might be in our backyard.
Warm currents, volcanic arches, walls of fish.
The East Auckland Current wraps these old volcanoes in warm, clear subtropical water. The result is an underwater world found nowhere else in Aotearoa — sheer cliffs and tunnels, sponge gardens, and arches packed so thick with fish the light goes blue.
A breath-hold in a living cathedral.
We run guided freedive trips out from the Tutukaka Coast — a short boat ride to the islands, then drift the arches and walls on a single breath. Best for certified freedivers, or as the goal you train toward on a course with us.
Winter brings glassy 30 m-plus visibility; summer brings the plankton and the life it feeds. Either way, you surface changed.
Sacred islands, left to the sea.
For centuries the Poor Knights were home to Ngātiwai. Hundreds lived on Tawhiti Rahi and Aorangi — terraced gardens, kāinga, kumara in the volcanic soil, the moana as the pantry.
Around the 1820s, while the men were away, a raiding party struck and the island people were lost. In their grief, the surviving chief laid the islands under tapu. No one has lived there since.
That tapu still holds. No one lands on the islands to this day — they belong to the seabirds, the tuatara, and the sea. Ngātiwai remain their guardians. We only ever visit the water.
Dive the Poor Knights with us.
Tell us your experience level and we’ll find you the right trip — or the course that gets you there.