We were booked with Dive Tutukaka, one of the largest operations in New Zealand, but they were very friendly and well organized and soon on our way. The sea conditions were far from perfect and the 1.5hr trip was pretty miserable for some of the passengers.
Not as bad as these guys though, they had to send one of the crew over to get more sick bags from our boat! All was calm once we got into the lee of the islands and the boat drove into a massive cave to show us where we would be diving. The cave was interesting and was covered in sponges and anemones that are normally only found in deeper water.
We had rented extra wetsuits because the water was 19C and we managed to stay down for 60 minutes without breaking the SWAMPY rule. (Anyone breaking the ‘don’t pee in your wetsuit’ rule, has the word ‘swampy’ written on their forehead by the skipper!)
The 2nd dive was amongst kelp that grows to about 1 m high on the volcanic rock. You have to get right underneath it where everything is hiding and we found the biggest Nudibranch we’d ever seen – this monster was 10cms long! 
