Cook Islands - One to put on your dive list

Rarotonga is one of my favourite places on earth with its warm climate, friendly people, relaxed atmosphere and that gorgeous blue water.

Rarotonga is only a 32km round trip, with a beautiful lagoon with access to some fantastic diving and snorkelling most of the way around.  
I chose to use The Dive Centre, based on the South Western side of the island, at the A’roa marine reserve. It’s hard to miss with its bright red fish on the side of the building! Sascha and Sabine run a very professional dive operation, with friendly, helpful and knowledgeable staff, who have a passion for diving and the marine environment. Their mission is “quality rather than quantity” and “you come as a guest and leave as a friend”, a fantastic philosophy.

Goldmine was the first dive of the day. The water was that gorgeous blue colour, crystal clear and so inviting, with a water temperature of 26C and 30m visibility. Perfect! This dive site is a hard coral reef with lots of overhangs where you’ll find fish taking a snooze, big clam shells no longer occupied and swim-through’ s for that bit of extra adventure! Heaps of pretty reef fish; longfin banner fish, threadfin coral fish, and one of my favourites the peacock grouper, we also saw a dog tooth tuna in the distance, which got my dive buddy very excited!

As the dive sites are so close to the shore; once everyone was back on board we would head back to the marina and sit in the sun eating fresh coconut while the instructors would get our gear ready for the next dive. It was a fun time to recount what we’d all seen but lots of hard work for instructors deciphering what we were trying to describe. Then there was the sharing of stories with divers from around the world…this information helped me add a few more spots to my ‘to dive list!’

I have a love of wreck diving, something I’m certain I’ve inherited from my dad, and I can still remember my first ‘wreck’ dive, when I came across a little boat that had sunk while I snorkelled in Tonga at the age of 13.  When I was told we were diving the Mataroa wreck I was instantly excited! The Mataroa was an inter island cargo ship, sunk in 1990 as a dive site. Unfortunately cyclones and rough seas have broken it up and it now lies in pieces on the bottom, with hard coral reef surrounding the site. At a depth of 12-18m and crystal clear water, you could see parts of the wreck from the surface. The fish love the nooks and crannies the wreck has provided, making it now home to much marine life. Especially the lion fish who have taken up residence inside and during the dive we were introduced to the very inquisitive and friendly titan triggerfish. This beautiful dark blue fish with pretty fins would swim along side us and if we stopped to check something out, you would find it looking over your shoulder too!

he dive site called Edna’s anchor is a beautiful site with a nice combination of hard corals and sandy passages that lead into Avarua Harbour. It was here that we encountered some awesome marine life. A giant moray eel was peering out of its hiding hole to say hello…and I mean GIANT! It can reach over 2m long! I had to get my dive buddy to get in close for the photo…I had concerns about my fingers! Then there was the smaller, prettier and cuter, honeycomb moray, who was a bit shy! The leaf scorpion fish was much harder to find, so petite and fragile, in beautiful colours of pink and orange. We came across the featherlike Lion fish with its fins dancing in the current, pretending like they can’t see you!

At the Pue Coral gardens, as the name suggests, there were a lot of hard corals to see, more pretty reef fish and I got to see what I had been crossing my fingers I would see all week…a Hawksbill Turtle! Nathan pointed out this familiar shape in the distance, as it swam closer and past the group as if to say ‘hello’. The hawksbill maintained its distance, but allowed me to swim alongside him, watching him glide through the water; so graceful! I watched him eating bits off the coral and got some great photos! I came up with a huge smile and a crazy amount of photos, I was buzzing!

A small group of divers has huge advantages, everyone was able to get in and out of the water quickly and it allowed you to get to know each other. Dive times were also only restricted by your air consumption and no decompression limits, so this allowed me to take advantage of my good air consumption and get the maximum out of my dive. Rarotonga has so much to offer both in, on and out of the water, so grab your friends, partner, family and go check out our close neighbour and enjoy their lovely hospitality, beautiful marine life and relaxed atmosphere….you won’t be disappointed!

Check out the Dive Centre’s website: www.thedivecentre-rarotonga.com
And facebook page: www.facebook.com/TheBigFishCooks/timeline