Morning of our third day. The final dive for the Open Ocean Dive Certification
Yup, if this day went well we would be “Certified”, no longer merely “Certifiable”. We were headed for the Poor Knights islands-about an hour boat ride off of Tutukaka. None other than the late Jacques Coustou has called this spot one of the top dive spots in the world. It has been a designated marine sanctuary since 1981. We were anxious to see if it lived up to it’s reputation-no, no, we were anxious period. This was our final dive to get certified. We would have to go down 30 feet under the water and prove that we could take off our facemask, remove our air regulator, then put both back on, blow out the water and not panic in the process. Yeah, right.
Well, turns out it all worked out. The boat was ready-an hour late due to a leak, but no worries mate as they say down here-and our “final exam” was a non-event. So…we had time to explore one of the top dive spots in the world. And it was. Just stunning! We really were almost speechless as we came out after our first dive of the day (there were two) So, we hope you enjoy a bit of the experience through these photos-our first ones with the new Go Pro camera that we bought for Christmas. Not too bad for a first try.
Here's Ann swooping down into the depths
Getting ready to drop into the depths
We went into a cave....
...and swam with a friendly sea turtle
One cave was large enough that the whole boat fit inside
The skipper took us through some of the arches (we went through the one in the background)
....and heading back to the mainland after a long but exhilarating day of diving-and we have our certificates!