I didn't even plan on doing any diving in New Zealand. I've heard about the Poor Knights Island site, but I figured it'd be too cold. Jacques Cousteau called this site no 7 in the world. Despite the fact that he's French, he did know thing or two about the ocean, so it's probably worth checking out. Normally I wouldn't hesitate, however there were 2 important factors to be taken into consideration: (1) ocean here is cold even in the summer, (2) it's winter :)
I booked my trip with Dive Tutukaka - they're the biggest and the only ones actually doing trips even out of season. Plus you get a free hot tea or chocolate after each dive, which makes all the difference on days like this. The dive itself was very nice. I was lucky to meet 2 other visitng diving instructors on the boat, so we buddied together and dove independently of the other people.
Not surprisingly, the water was cold. 62F!. I had two 7mm pieces, but it still got pretty chilly after 30 minutes or so. Luckily, there's a lot of life to keep one entertained and help to fotget about the cold. I was quite impressed by the fact that both of our dives ended up being 60 minutes :) I don't think I've ever seen so many murray eels (5 different types), lots of nudibranches and other "macro" stuff, lots of stonefish, etc. Plus the kelp make the bottom look like one huge meadow.
It was my first dive with the new Olympus Tough 8000 - still getting used to it (especially macro and flash settings are very different from my previous one), but I really like it. The pictures look better and with more color. One of the huge benefits is also the fact, that I don't have to worry about flooding the camera - even if water gets into the housing, the camera itself is waterproof up to 30ft :) Awesome!