New divers visiting North Island

[PortyPirate]

What is considered the top 5 to 10 dive sites in the North Island of New Zealand for newly qualified divers that can't go below 20m? Most of the popular sites seem to be deeper than than this.


We are coming out to New Zealand from Scotland for our honeymoon in April 2016. We just passed our basic diving qualification in September so are limited to 20 meters, and don't have much experience (probably at most 20 dives by then). We would like to get a variety of dives, including coral reefs and going around wrecks.
We are thinking of doing about 6 days of diving during our 20 days there. Our plan the rest of the time is to chill out and do a drive/camper van tour of the island.


We would also be interested in recommendations on dive companies that would give us enough support and guidance without charging the earth.


Any other thoughts or ideas would be greatly appreciated. :thumbs-up

Many Thanks
Porty Pirate

 

[hypnodiver]

You may need to realign your expectations a bit - you won't find coral reefs around New Zealand, and most of the readily accessible wrecks are in the 20m - 40m range.

However, for divers in your situation I'd strongly recommend getting in touch with Dive!Tutukaka. They run boats out to the Poor Knights (which is a fantastic place to dive) and are very well set up for divers who are new or are unfamiliar with temperate water diving. I'd also recommend having a talk to Paihia Dive (in the Bay of Islands) since they run regular trips to the HMNZS Canterbury and the Rainbow Warrior and may be able to take you on a guided dive to these wrecks.

 

[Wingy]

Another vote for Tutukaka - I was really impressed with Poor Knights - would have liked to have done more diving in NZ but the little taster of Poor Knights was enough to make me want to go back and spend a decent amount of time diving there. Thanks for the tip on the rainbow warrior Hypnodivers.

 

[clownfishsydney]

Northland Dive at the Bay of Islands is also great (we have also done Poor Knights as above). No legal reason for you to be limited to 20 metres so long as the operators are happy with you on your first dive.

 

[Frosty]

Sorry Ive been busy elsewhere.-Without a moments hesitation I would recommend you go to Tutakaka and dive the Poor Knights.
You could dive there 100 times and never do the same dive so they can cater for a range of dive experience levels.
personally Im not keen on dive tutakaka because I don't like "cattle boats" -they run fairly big boats (20-30 divers)
I'd suggest instead Yukon Dive who run 2 boats. Comfortable 8 divers in the small boat and 15 in the bigger boat.
To give you an idea I took my kids to the Knights this time last year kids from 3 years old to 17 years old. everyone had a great time and everybody except the 3 year old was able to dive.Most of em chose to just snorkel in 6-8m of water and even that they were pretty happy with

 

[outofofficebrb]

+1. A third vote for Dive! Tutukaka. One of the best dive operators I have ever been with. Professional, great sense of humor, covers all their bases and are huge on safety. They are very good about interviewing each diver and finding out about their experience to pair them up with the right DM and other fellow divers. They have a max of 6 people per DM.