Rainbow Warrior, New Zealand

By Jenny Enderby (Adapted from "passport to diving the world")

Well Known For :

A divespot filled with famous wrecks home to a large variety of fish.

The dark silhoutte on the sand below slowly materialises into a ship surrounded by schools of fish. Swaying kelp forests over the decks add to the experience. The word "rainbow" has new meaning here, with invertebrates in every colour imaginable covering the hull. Jewel anemones are dominant with yellow and orage finger sponges, bryozoans and ascidians among them. White bonsai-like hydroids are grazed by pink and white "Jason" nudibranchs. Inside the hull, wall-to-wall schools of bigeye wait for night to move out and feed. Snappers, demoiselles, and leatherjackets hover over the wreck, goatfish feed on the decks while scorpionfish sit camouflaged waiting for a small fish to venture too close. Marauding kingfish scatter the schools of smaller fish. Rainbow Warrior, the ex-Greenpeace ship bombed by French terrorists, is a special place now, a perfect manmade reef home to myriad marine creatures.

(Ok enough with the stories, I'm itchin' for a dive)