Diving the Three Kings Islands, New Zealand

Fifty-five kilometres northwest of Cape Reinga, the land runs out and thirteen uninhabited islands take over. No beaches. No people. Just rock rising out of very deep water where the South Pacific Ocean and the Tasman Sea meet.

This is the kind of diving you travel for because of where it sits, not because of what has been built there. The islands stand on their own submarine plateau, the Three Kings Bank, cut off from the mainland by an 8-kilometre trough that drops 200 to 300 metres. That isolation is the whole point.

The water is temperate, as low as 14°C at times, yet the fish and invertebrates include several tropical species. Blame the East Auckland current, which sweeps past the offshore island groups of the North Island's east coast and drops off passengers. Cold water, warm-water strays, and generally very good visibility.

Two groups, four main islands

The archipelago splits neatly in two. To the east sits the King Group: Great Island, known to Māori as Manawatāwhi or Ōhau, at 4.04 km² and 295 m high, plus North East Island a kilometre away and the low nub of Farmers Rocks, five metres tall and a few hundred square metres in size.

To the southwest, things get more interesting for a boat with a dive deck. South West Island is the second largest at 0.38 km² and 207 m high. West of it lie the Princes Islands, seven islets and a scatter of rocks strung out over 1.8 km, including one named Rosemary Rock. Then West Island, 177 m high, another 500 m on.

The named dive sites follow that geography. Halfway Bay and South West Island in the southwest. Lion Rock and Arch Reef among the Princes. Around Great Island you have Great Island Northwest, South East Bay, Crater Bay, Cascade Bay and Tasman Bay, plus a site off North East Island. The whole group covers only about 4.86 km² of land, so the sites sit close together.

The Elingamite

Off West Island lies the wreck of the Elingamite, which foundered on 9 November 1902. She is marked at S34°11.126' E172°01.875'.

That is all the guide gives, and honestly it is enough to make you want to see her. A ship lost on the far side of the country's last islands, still there more than a century later.

Water and weather

These islands are exposed to wind and swell from every direction. The bulk of the North Island gives a little shelter from southeasterly swells, and that is the extent of the protection. Anchorages are few, and the bottom is usually boulders and bedrock, so an anchor may hold well enough but can foul easily.

Visibility tends to be good, and the reason is simple: the islands are tiny, so rainwater runoff carries very little silt into the sea. Standard recreational kit suits most dives. Wetsuits do the job most of the time, though a drysuit may be preferable for long dives when the water is cold.

Look at the wave column and you can see the shape of a trip here. November through February brings the warmest water and the smallest average swell; the middle of the year runs cooler and lumpier. The marine forecast data is an average, not a promise, and the islands will do what the two oceans tell them to do.

Names and permits

Abel Tasman named the group Drie Koningen Eyland on 6 January 1643, three weeks after becoming the first European known to have seen New Zealand. It was Twelfth Night, the feast marking the visit of the three kings to the Christ child. He anchored here looking for water, and found 30 to 35 people living with gardens and no trees in sight.

The Māori names run far deeper. Manawatāwhi means "panting breath", associated in some Te Aupōuri traditions with the ancestor Rauru, who swam to the islands and arrived exhausted. Ōhau, West Island, is the final glimpse of New Zealand seen by departing spirits after they leave the world at Cape Reinga. Ngāti Kurī came here as a refuge in times of war, and to harvest hāpuku, seabirds and eggs.

The islands were purchased by the government in 1908, declared an animal sanctuary in 1930, and made a reserve for flora and fauna in 1956. Today the group is a nature reserve administered by the Department of Conservation, and going ashore requires a permit. The islands also carry real cultural importance to Māori.

Getting there

There is no shortcut. The islands are uninhabited and access is only by boat from the mainland, either on day trips or aboard a liveaboard. Nothing is on the islands themselves, and all emergency services sit back on the mainland.

So the planning question is not really which sites to pick. It is which boat, and which window of weather. Get both right and you get a group of islands that almost nobody has dived, with clear water and a wreck from 1902.

If you make it out to the Kings, log it. Record the temperature you actually found at Arch Reef, note whether the Elingamite showed herself, and post the tropical fish you did not expect in 16-degree water. Your log from a place this hard to reach is worth more than most. Start it at Scubaspot.