Our Perfect Day cruise - by Louis

One day, while we were in Whangerai on the North Island of New Zealand, we hopped in our Toyota Corolla and zoomed off to our destination Perfect Day Ocean Cruises. When we arrived at our one hull perfect boat from Perfect Day, the minute we stepped into the boat, we were greeted with a great big: “Hi mate, welcome aboard Perfect Day, take your seats and we should be getting going in ten minutes.”  He then said: “Go over there and try your flippers on: make sure they are the right size (wink).” “Wow!” I said “That is a good greeting.” We took our seats and sure enough we were off and away in ten minutes. 

When we were half way there the skipper started to tell us about the Poor Knights Islands. When we arrived, the first thing we did was to go snorkeling and we saw a big shoal of green fish. We were pretty cold when we returned to the boat but nevertheless it was fun and we enjoyed it. After that we had a brilliant buffet, I had honey and chicken sandwiches with lettuce, tomato, cucumber and beetroot. It was Yum yum yum.  

My lovely lunch!

Then we went sea kayaking all the way past the cave that should not be named (but they named it the "Washing Machine": because as soon as you went in it you got spun around and shot back out the side you came in.) 

A new galaxy........?

This is the life!

We got to another cave called Rikoriko in our awesome kayak which, in fact, is the biggest sea cave in the world.  We were at the entrance and I was a little uncertain about whether I should go in or not.  We could see this big, black hole right in front of us, which looked a little freaky. The water was so clear and blue. Daddy said, "Let’s just go to this rock inside the edge." When we got there, he said "Let’s just go to that rock further in," and then we decided to go a little further still and then even further.  After that we decided to carry on paddling and went on until we touched the back of the cave.  The cave was about 10 metres high from the water to the ceiling, and about the same again beneath the surface. From the entrance of the cave it was about 50 metres to the back. There were some amazing colours like navy blue, black, red, orange and purple striped across the rocks at the back, as if someone had painted them there. The sound of the water dripping from the ceiling echoed around until it found its way back towards the cave entrance, it was really eerie. 

It's really annoying when people put graffiti in such strange places....

Gladiators!

We went back to the boat and had a paddleboard. We tried to knock one another off; it was fun but hard. We paddled back to the boat again and returned to Rikoriko cave in the Perfect Day boat, and managed to get all the way to the back of the cave again.  While we were there, the skipper said "3, 2, 1!" and we didn't know what he was going to do next. Then we suddenly heard the huge blast from the ship's horn, it was deafening, and the echo was like someone repeating the blast right in front of you, getting quieter and quieter each time. I wondered that if noise could shatter glass whether it could shatter rock too!

The light at the end of the tunnel....

After that we had a tour around the islands and sped back to the mainland of New Zealand, it was really wavy and water kept coming in over the front of the boat.

It was a perfect day and I think "Perfect Day" is a good name for the cruise.