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Language: en

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Cape Reinga, at the very northern tip
of New Zealand's North Island,

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is one of the few places in the world where
you can watch two oceans collide.

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So say the guidebooks, anyway.
The truth is a little more complicated.

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First of all, you can find photos online
like this.

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I took that from a kayak in Svalbard,
up in the Arctic.

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Two very different coloured waters separated
by a bit of foam.

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People online claim that photos like it show
one of the few places in the world

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where two oceans meet but don't mix,
but no.

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That's just where a river is washing fresh water
filled with sediment out into the sea.

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The truth of where two oceans meet is just
not that dramatic.

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Here, at least, you can see the waves from
the Tasman Sea coming in from the west

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and clashing with the Pacific Ocean
waves from the east.

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Right?

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No.

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Ocean currents and waves have many causes:

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the weather, water temperature,
water salinity -- how much salt’s in there.

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And they’re three-dimensional.

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Now, with all the complicated geography and wind
here at the very tip of the country:

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of course it’s chaotic down there,
it's turbulent,

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of course you have different sets of waves
meeting, but those are local effects.

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As soon as you get away from land,

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the water here will become part of the massive
system that's defined by

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global weather and ocean currents.

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And those ocean currents are
measured in sverdrup.

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One sverdrup is a million cubic metres of
water, moving at a metre per second,

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and the largest currents measure more than
a hundred sverdrup.

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Those are amounts that make no sense
on any human scale.

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While there are often currents here that might
contribute to that particular weird wave pattern...

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this is just one very, very small bit of the ocean
with waves that look messy on a human scale

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because of the land nearby.

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And despite what the guidebooks say,

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this isn't even where the Tasman Sea ends
and the Pacific begins.

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Not according to the maps.

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The official limits of oceans and seas are
defined

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by the International
Hydrographic Organisation,

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and those standards are arbitrary lines designed
to make sure that everyone can agree on what’s where,

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so that weather warnings and marine charts describe
the same areas no matter who's producing them.

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Those lines are nothing to do with the position
of any ocean currents.

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And according to those standards,

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the Tasman Sea meets the Pacific
at North Cape,

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a closed nature reserve
about two kilometres that way.

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This is just a windy bit of rock
with a lighthouse and a road.

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That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t come here, though.

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Cape Reinga is beautiful,

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it’s part of the local mythology,
and it’s worth the trip.

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But when they say it’s where two oceans
collide…

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that just isn’t quite true.