"He surfaced and they brought him on the boat but he died at the scene."
There were four in the dive party, made up of three divers and the skipper of the boat.
It wasn't known what had gone wrong, but the dead man's companions had retrieved his body and taken him to Paua, where they had launched from.
It was not yet known if the other divers had been in the water or in the boat at the time the man surfaced.
A post-mortem examination was to be done in Auckland yesterday.
The police dive squad from Wellington flew North and were searching the water for the man's dive gear in the hope it would provide key information.
Houhora residents had volunteered a boat for the dive squad to use and they left about 11.30am. It's estimated it would take them three hours boating to reach the dive spot yesterday.
Meanwhile, it was a busy day for Coastguard volunteers as they rescued six boaties in two separate incidents in Whangarei on Tuesday.
Coastguard northern region received the first call for help about midday from three people on board a private vessel that broke down just off Ruakaka.
The vessel had a flat battery and Coastguard volunteers were attending to that callout when they received another mayday call off Waipu Cove, south of Whangarei, about 1pm.
Coastguard northern region operations manager Ray Burge said volunteers left a jumpstarter pack with the three on board at Ruakaka before rushing off to the second callout within 10 minutes of the call for help coming through.
The Ruakaka boaties safely made their way to shore, he said.
Another three people were left stranded at Waipu Cove after a fire started in the engine of their 34ft launch.
The blaze had been contained by the time Coastguard volunteers arrived, although it was still smouldering.
Mr Burge said the volunteers assessed the situation before towing the launch to Marsden Cove Marina where it was checked by firefighters.
"It was a busy day for the volunteers but they did a fantastic job," Mr Burge said.
