Diving Inside & Beneath the Hole in the Rock

Cathedral Cave is on the inside of the Hole in the Rock

You need to have more diving experience for this dive due to the nature of the currents in the area. But at the right time of year it’s hard to beat. Rays school here to breed and at times you won’t be able to see the cave floor for both large short tailed and long tailed stingrays.

The floor at the entrance of Cathedral Cave is around 28m with the cave shallowing up to around 10-12m at the back. The side walls as you exit the cave are very interesting, encrusted with life with some lovely nudibranchs, and eels

A great plan for this dive is to follow the right hand wall into the cave, taking your time. When you get to the back area where all the boulders are, turn and enjoy the view. Stingrays will be silhouetted against the blue backdrop. It’s stunning!
Diving inside the Hole in the Rock itself must be treated as an overhead environment due to the amount of boat traffic. It’s at an average depth of 10m and traverses lots of boulders which hide lots of eels, scorpion fish and octopus.

The Hole in the Rock is also the most common place where we see Lord Howe coral fish, typically hanging out in pairs, but they are skittish and hard to take pictures of, though worth the effort.

The Hole is typically dived as a drift and as you exit you can slide around to your right or left and either be picked up at the dog island, or if you went the other way, get picked up at the entrance to Cathedral Cave.

A DSMB (Delayed Surface Marker Buoy) and a good boatman are essential for drift diving here. And only dive this site in calm conditions as the currents through and around the Hole in the Rock can be extreme.

For more info contact Paihia Dive at www.divenz.com