We had an early start as we had to be at the Paihia Dive shop by 8am for our first day of SCUBA diving. After collecting our equipment we headed down to the wharf and joined the rest of the group on the boat out into the bay.

Howie’s first dive was onto the wreck of the HMNZS Canterbury, which lies at a depth of 30m. It was a really interesting dive, with the large ship sitting upright and almost completely intact on the seabed. We then moved on to a nearby shallower site so that Kate could do her first ever dive in the sea, and the first of the four dives required for the PADI Open Water certification.

After lunch on the dive boat we moved on to Lighthouse Bay for a dive around the rocks there. We still had to dive separately so that Kate could focus on her training with Tayna (her instructor) but the highlight for both of us was seeing seals playing under the water.

We had dinner back at the campsite and got an early night ready for another day of diving.