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Poor Knights Islands

Northland, New Zealand · 10–35m · intermediate · semi

Subtropical archways and kelp walls where warm currents meet temperate seas — Cousteau's favourite temperate dive.

Conditions today

Retrieved · refreshed hourly

good

Good — 0.6m effective waves in the morning window.

Limiting factor: waves

Wave height
0.8m
Wave period
6.5–7.9s
Wind chop
0–0.2m
Sea temp
16.4°C

Ranges span today's hours. Wave height here is the raw sea state — the rating scales it for how exposed the site is. Semi-exposed — partial protection, so swell is scored at three-quarters of its open-water height.

Next few days

  • TodayGood — 0.6m effective waves in the morning window.good
  • FridayGood — 0.5m effective waves in the morning window.good
  • SaturdayGood — 0.4m effective waves in the morning window.good

Each day is scored over its morning dive window, the same as today's rating.

Dive briefing

AI-generated

Conditions are good today, with 0.6m effective waves in the morning window keeping things manageable across the site. You'll work between 10 and 35 metres through subtropical archways and kelp walls where warm currents meet temperate seas. The water sits at 16.4°C, so dress accordingly. This is intermediate-level diving on a semi-exposed site.

Divers commonly log Cook's Scorpionfish and Estuarine Triplefin here, along with New Zealand Demoiselle, Eastern King Wrasse, Australasian Snapper, Violet Sweep, Eastern Pigfish, and Common Triplefin. Conditions favour getting in and making the most of the underwater topography.

Written by Claude (claude-haiku-4-5-20251001) from the rating, forecast, and sightings on this page — it has no other source and cannot look anything up. Treat it as a summary, not as local knowledge.

Commonly seen here

Most-recorded species near this site, ranked by research-grade iNaturalist sightings from divers, snorkelers, and naturalists.

Species come from iNaturalist — research-grade sightings logged by divers, snorkelers, and naturalists nearby. The ranking reflects what people photograph most, not guaranteed abundance. Ask a local operator what's actually being seen. Species names link to iNaturalist for range maps, seasonality and more photos. Photos by iNaturalist contributors under Creative Commons licences — individual credit on hover.