The Poor Knights Islands are sacred to New Zealand’s indigenous Maori people, a place of both spiritual significance and tragic history. The ecologically charmed archipelago inspires pride in all Kiwis — a national treasure worth protecting. Underwater, the Poor Knights have been called otherworldly — profound. Blessed with a fortunate location at the terminus of the East Australia Current, the isolated volcanic islets are bathed in warm, bountiful waters from the Coral Sea that transform the region’s typical subtropical marine environment into something completely unique. Cousteau was moved when he visited in the 1980s. And their reputation was enough to lure me halfway around the planet. But can a stranger truly connect with a strange land?

Te Tatua was a Maori chief who ruled over an idyllic settlement nestled in the green saddle of Aorangi, the southernmost of the Poor Knights. But he made a fatal mistake that would forever alter the history of the islands.

Known by the Maori as Aorangi and Tawhiti Rahi, the Poor Knights Islands were a smart place for a settlement. The surrounding sea was abundant with food, the volcanic soil was fertile, and the steep, rocky cliffs offered a strong natural defense against invaders. Over time, Te Tatua’s tribe grew thousands strong, building terraced farms and raising pigs — a rare and highly prized commodity of the time. Likely left behind by Capt. James Cook — who visited in 1769 and named the islands for his favorite dessert — these porcine riches drew tribes from the mainland to brave the dangerous 12-mile crossing to trade, including the powerful chief Waikato, from across the Northland peninsula. Rebuffed immediately and barred from landing his canoe, Waikato’s pride was injured — a serious offense that he would not forget.

Years later, the opportunity for revenge presented itself. An escaped slave from Aorangi alerted that Te Tatua and his warriors had left the island undefended to join a warring expedition. Under cover of night, the enraged Waikato attacked the women, children and elders who remained, taking only a few prisoners, including his rival’s wife. Te Tatua arrived home to a horrific scene and placed a tapu of blood on the islands, declaring them forbidden: No Maori would ever set foot there again, under penalty of death.

The bodies still lie where they fell in 1820, “like a Kiwi Pompei,” says Luke Howe, a native Northlander and veteran captain at PADI Dive Center Dive Tutukaka. “This site still has massive significance to the local Maori. It’s the jewel in their crown.” Thanks to strict protection by the New Zealand government, the islands remain off-limits to all but permitted archaeologists.

I’m engrossed by his story, until the cry “Orca!” breaks my trance. A large black dorsal fin splits the calm bay where we’re moored on a surface interval. Killer whales are a common sight here, visiting seasonally to feed on the giant short-tail stingrays that aggregate in the deep canyons to breed. As we scramble around the Bright Arrow to get the best view of two adults and a calf, adrenaline intensifies the feeling that this place is special, an impression that each and every dive around the Poor Knights would reinforce.

Based in the bucolic outpost of Tutukaka on the east coast of the Northland region, I’ll spend a whirlwind 10 days exploring as many of the Knights’ more than 80 named dive sites as possible. The first foray focuses on Tawhiti Rahi, the north island. Even before I break the surface at Northern Arch, I can see a squadron of athletic kingfish jetting in and out of a thick swarm of blue mao mao. Descending through the melee is disorienting, but as my depth increases through the cool, cobalt shallows, the colors of the encrusted arch become more vivid. About 60 feet wide and open at the surface, the gulf between the vertical walls is a highway for fish, mostly pink mao mao and demoiselles, but the walls call, and I hover for a time on each to study the spectrum of sponges, anemones and other encrusting life.

The biodiversity and abundance are a testament to the health of this marine environment, thanks in large part to the Poor Knights’ protected status as a marine reserve, a convention that dates all the way back to the time of Te Tatua.

Culture of Conservation

New Zealand's tradition of protecting its natural treasures is deeply ingrained in the Kiwi culture, especially in Northland, where the sea is integral to the local way of life. Since a great deal of the region’s livelihood, sustenance and recreation come from the ocean, it only makes sense to preserve it. From earliest history, the Maori tradition of tapu was also used to set aside areas of great value and spiritual connection. It took only a few dives to discover why the Poor Knights qualified as both.

The sloping wall at Cream Gardens, a site on the northeast side of Tawhiti Rahi, is a swaying field of chartreuse kelp that threatens to hypnotize as I glide above it. Beneath the cover of glowing leaves, my Dive Tutukaka guide Emily Tomchin, an American expat, points out exotic species like mosaic moray eels, triplefins and tambja verconis nudibranch set against a background of ridiculous color, from deep purples to iridescent pinks, oranges and reds. Some form of encrusting life coats every square inch of the rocky substrate, and in shocking diversity. But it’s the size of the numerous scorpionfish, crayfish and a short-tail stingray streaking by that really impresses.

“Gigantism is well documented in the Poor Knights,” Tomchin says. “Everything just seems to grow bigger here.” And more diverse, I’ll learn.

A day later, perfect conditions allow us to drop on Sugarloaf, a weathered rock pinnacle that towers above the open ocean a few miles southwest of the Knights proper. Swimming along the vertical wall that plunges beyond 200 feet, I marvel at a strange juxtaposition of species: Cold-water-loving kelp thrives amid delicate crinoids and gorgonians normally at home in warmer temperatures, while tropical butterflyfish compete for space in the water column with temperate kingfish. The bizarre biological community reinforces why this place is so deserving of reverence — and protection.

Thankfully, the Kiwis understood the immense value, and that factor moved them to include the Poor Knights in one of their first maritime parks in 1967, later, in 1981, upgrading the archipelago’s status to marine reserve, to allow only recreational fishing, and finally creating a complete no-take zone in 1998 that extends out a half-mile. It has paid off, particularly for one of the region’s most important and heavily fished species, the Australasian snapper.

“When I started coming here in 1997, you’d be lucky to see one or two snapper; now it’s a very rare day when you don’t see dozens,” says Howe, who fished here with his father as a boy. “The next generation is seeing the benefits of that change.”

This forward-thinking mentality has inspired leaders in the dive community to take even more pressure off these natural resources by creating artificial reefs to serve both fishermen and divers.

Kiwi divers are wreck lovers, explains Craig Johnston, owner of Paihia Dive, a PADI Five Star Dive Center in the bustling holiday town of Paihia. We’re motoring through the achingly picturesque Bay of Islands, where golden beaches border soft green foothills beneath ultrablue skies, on our way to Northland’s newest and largest wrecks. I’ve taken a quick side trip here to dive the Canterbury, a 372-foot behemoth scuttled in 2007 at a spot called Deep Water Cove. Along with the 372-foot Waikato, 210-foot Tui and 131-foot Rainbow Warrior, the former Royal New Zealand Navy frigate is part of a region-wide initiative to create world-class artificial reefs not only as a boost for tourism, which helps fuel the local economy, but to take ecological pressure off the natural reefs in the area.

On the wreck, Johnston and I glide along the starboard side in bright, 80-foot visibility and drop into the wide-open hangar at the stern, interrupting a school of snapper before continuing up to the communications tower, where strands of tall kelp grow on a platform. Submerged just a few years, the ship is already showing impressive growth and drawing large numbers of interesting inhabitants.

There’s a more advanced scene of transformation the next day when we dive the Rainbow Warrior, the former Greenpeace flagship that was famously sunk in Auckland harbor by French commandos in 1985. Refloated and moved north to the Cavalli Islands two years later, the hull and bowsprit of the 131-foot trawler are almost completely covered in luminous jeweled anemones that light up the superstructure with vivid shots of pink, purple and orange. Again the bountiful ocean here has turned a structure of inanimate metal into a haven for life.

These artificial reefs and the surrounding islands are a source of visible pride for Johnston. Like most of the outwardly rough-and-tumble Kiwis I’ve met, he betrays strong emotion when talking about his local waters, demonstrating the intense connection Kiwis have to their homeland. As a visitor, it’s sometimes difficult to form a meaningful bond with a place when you’re just passing through. But in Northland, my kinship is growing by the day.

Completing the Connection

One of the most fundamental and powerful tenets of the Maori world view is Turangawaewae. Literally translated as “the place I stand,” it’s a heady concept that explains the deep spiritual connection they have with their environment, and the pervasive empowerment they receive from it.

I’ve returned to Tutukaka to spend the last few days of the trip at the Poor Knights. Reunited with the Dive Tutukaka crew, I get the chance to experience the Aorangi Island site that inspired Jacques-Yves Cousteau to tag the Knights one of the world’s top-10 dives when he brought the Calypso through in 1986: Blue Mao Mao Arch. It’s a prime example of the plentiful cathedrallike structures created by the Knights’ volcanic heritage. The wide central cavern, illuminated by side chambers raining sunlight from above, is so filled with its namesake fish that I sometimes lose sight of my dive mates.

At the hallowed Middle Arch on Tawhiti Rahi, I get lost in heavily decorated walls, scouring the tight spaces between pink sponges and frilly, white-tipped anemone in search of clown, gem and other wild nudibranch, as well as comical crested blenny and assorted tiny triplefin. In the water column beneath the arch, a constant parade of demoiselles with glinting white spots cruises above the kelp floor where blood-red scorpionfish wait in ambush. The sheer number and density of compelling underwater encounters here drive home the allure of the Poor Knights.

Diving these main attractions, the thought of an all-in relocation to Tutukaka begins to cross my mind. But it’s a rarely dived, novelty site called Lost World where the abstraction of Turangawaewae takes a more concrete hold. A winding maze of passageways barely 30 feet deep links two large grottoes open to the sun and latticed with rock arches. Beneath the surface, the walls are covered in a fiery mosaic of scarlet waratah anemones, but the scene up above is much more compelling, so I ascend to float on my back and gaze skyward into the intense blue of midday framed through a circular opening of mottled stone draped in dangling green foliage. With the lilting, falsetto call of the endemic bellbird for a soundtrack, I let my mind wander back through the discoveries of Northland, New Zealand: dancing kelp, orca apparitions, bejeweled shipwrecks and tie-dyed walls. In too few hours, I’ll board a plane for the long trip across continents back to my own home in Florida. But I suspect the experiences of both the peculiar underwater world and the rich Kiwi culture will sustain my connection to this place. And I’m sure one day I’ll stand here again.