Explore Whangarei

Whangarei is the northernmost city in New Zealand’s North Island, located only a 30-minutes drive from what Jacques Cousteau rated as one of the top 10 dive sites in the world, the Poor Knights Islands. Witness orca whales and enormous congregations of the world’s largest stingray, the short-tailed ray, at the Poor Knights or head out for some shore diving on the Tutukaka Coast and Taiharuru area - excellent for collecting scallops in the right season! Whangarei is lucky enough to have two of the three New Zealand Navy frigates sunk on its doorstep, the HMNZS Canterbury and HMNZS Waikato, available for advanced and technical divers.

Scuba diving in Whangarei is possible from a few dive centres in the city, with dive trips offered mainly on the weekend. Dive courses range from your first ever scuba experience to becoming a professional diver.

Upcoming Events

Diver Level Programs / Courses

DIVE NOW

Try Scuba

15 Nov 2025

The SSI Try Scuba program is the best way to try scuba diving for the first time. You will be in confined water and well looked after by your instructor, so you can enjoy those first unforgettable breaths underwater and experience the magic of scuba diving. At the end of this short course, you will have earned your SSI Try Scuba recognition card and undoubtedly want to go diving again. Endless scuba diving adventures are waiting for you and this course is where it all begins. Start today!

Diver Level Programs / Courses

DIVE NOW

Scuba Skills Update

08 Dec 2025

It is easy for dive skills to get rusty and to lose confidence when you have not dived for a while. With the SSI Scuba Skills Update, we will get you back in the water and diving with ease in no time. This scuba refresher course allows you to review and practice scuba skills you learned in your Open Water Diver program, under the guidance of an SSI Professional. This is a great course to take just before a dive holiday, so you spend less time worrying about your skills and more time admiring the marine life. If you are a non-certified Open Water Diver student, a Scuba Skills Update is ideal for practicing your dive skills before your open water training dives. With no fixed course duration, you can take your time and focus on the skills you need help with.

Diver Level Programs / Courses

DIVE NOW

Advanced Open Water Diver

07 Feb 2026

If you cannot decide which specialty programs are the best choice for you, join the SSI Advanced Open Water Diver program! You will try Deep Diving and Navigation plus a variety of 3 more specialty areas of choice before committing to full specialty training. It is a great way to experience what advanced diver training is all about and how valuable it can be to your diving adventures. During the Advanced Open Water Diver Program, you will experience 5 different specialties by completing one open water training dive per specialty after a comprehensive briefing with your SSI Instructor. By taking this program you will have total freedom to explore. You can complete the full Specialty trainings any time in the future and credit your Advanced Open Water Diver training towards them.

Top Dive Sites Map

★★★★★ Whangarei Heads Old Women

Access is by boat only here. A rocky kelpy shore line that slopes away to around 12m+ to the sand line. Some cool pinnacles and swim throughs can be found in the area. As you go further away from shore and follow the sand line to the 30m mark you will find some more spectacular pinnacles.

24
Logs
13
Divers
13.0 m
⌀ Depth
7.0 m
⌀ Visibility

★★★☆☆ Taurikura

30 Minutes from Dive Now, Whangarei. One of our popular shallow training sites for Open Water courses. A shallow site, but busy with boat traffic.

71
Logs
37
Divers
6.0 m
⌀ Depth
3.0 m
⌀ Visibility

★★★★☆ Bream Rock

A potentially deep dive site of over 40m with strong currents makes this a site for experienced divers and freedivers with experienced boaties looking after them.

9
Logs
6
Divers
17.0 m
⌀ Depth
25.0 m
⌀ Visibility

★★★☆☆ Reotahi Bay

Shore dive down a maximum of 10m to explore the old mooring blocks and boulders on the sand, then come back up into the oyster covered boulders and then back across the seagrass to the exit point.

52
Logs
25
Divers
8.0 m
⌀ Depth
4.0 m
⌀ Visibility

★★★☆☆ Urquharts Bay

Limited car parking as this is by the start of a popular walking site that has toilets and a drinking fountain. Stairs down to the beach and then a long walk through shallow water with a slippery bottom until you find deeper water. Alternately divers travel here by boat and dive a little further from shore.

227
Logs
108
Divers
7.0 m
⌀ Depth
3.0 m
⌀ Visibility
Mares

★★★★☆ Dive Now

Our heated indoor training pool is located on site and is around 24 degrees C warm. It is 1.4m deep in the shallows with a deep area that is 6m x 6m and 3.5m deep.

81
Logs
55
Divers
7.0 m
⌀ Depth
10.0 m
⌀ Visibility

Diving in Palma

From the shore of the Tutukaka Coast and Taiharuru, divers can explore cliff walls, canyons encrusted with anemones and crayfish. If the sea conditions are rough on the coast, it’s possible to dive within the harbour at McLeod’s Bay, Reothi or Urquharts Bay, which are perfect for scallop diving during the right season. On the rare occasion, even the harbour can’t be explored, some freshwater diving at Kai Iwi Lakes can be enjoyed.

At the Poor Knights Islands, the underwater landscape features caves, tunnels and arches with the southern hemisphere’s largest underwater cave found here – Riko Riko Cave. Two of the three submerged New Zealand frigates can be dived off the Tutukaka Coast.

The best Months to Dive in Whangarei

The Tutukaka Coast and surrounding sites are influenced by a warm current that comes south from Australia, resulting in water temperatures that are warmer than the rest of New Zealand. There are two distinct seasons underwater, with the summer between November and April featuring water temperatures reaching 20°C–23℃ but with visibility of 20 metres due to plankton blooms. In winter, between May and September, water temperatures drop as low as 14°C–16℃ but visibility increases to over 30 metres.

At Poor Knights Islands, the best time to see orca, manta ray, sea turtles and stingrays is in the summer months.

Statistics

Historical data and trends

Dive Activity & Environmental Conditions

Centers Map

DIVE NOW

41 Clyde Street, 0110 Whangarei, NZL

Moana Futures

16 belmont Avenue, 0112 Whangarei, NZL