This Looks WAY too long, just show me the underwater pictures!
Hawaii was not on our list of top dive destinations. To be honest, Hawaii always struck me as a place that was just too touristy and expensive. We came to Hawaii because my wife always wanted to see flowing lava and the Big Island is one of the most reliable places in the world to see this. I decided that if we were going all the way to this place to see a volcano, we better do something else as well. So we decided to go diving for 4 days. I'm really glad that we did because it was truly awesome. This, despite the fact that we didn't see any mantas on our manta night dive and missed seeing a whale shark when we decided to take a break from diving one morning! We looked at various dive companies before we left and it was a real tossup between Dive Makai and Aloha Dive Company. We finally settled on Aloha Dive Company (1-800-708-5662) because they had a small boat (maximum of 6 divers) that could easily go to some of the more remote sites. Mike and Earl (the two guys who run the boat) did not disappoint. They showed us a wide variety of topography and species ranging from Spanish Dancers to Day Octopus to turtles to rare fish like the Flame Angelfish, Tinker's Butterflyfish, and Flame Pipefish to 10 - 10 foot hammersharks! Mike and Earl's enthusiasm for finding things both big and small and selection of varied dive sites made this one of the best dive experiences that we've ever had! (BTW - Remember to click on the thumbnails to see the larger pictures with explanatory text).
We arrived in Kona at about 10 p.m. on November 18, 2000 and were eager to start diving the next morning. We had arranged to meet Mike and Earl the next morning at Keahou Bay, which is south of Kailua-Kona. We were going on a two tank remote dive, which was more expensive than the local dive. If memory serves, Aloha Dive company charged around $30-40 more for the two tank "remote" dive, which is well worth the extra cost. You dive in places where few dive boats go. One of these sites was a truly beautiful place (topographically) and we were lucky enough to see 9 hammerheads! I'm not going to reveal the name of this place because I'd like to keep it somewhat pristine. Mike and Earl will know where it is. Suffice to say that it is in the Southern part of the Island. In summary, I would suggest that you DEFINITELY do at least one 2-tank remote dive. We mixed it up. We did two 2-tank remote dives, two 2-tank twilight/night dives, and one 2-tank "local" dive, which cost us about $530/person. Mike and Earl prefer to do the remote dives in the morning and the local dives in the afternoon but they are pretty flexible.
We left at about 7 a.m. and motored our way south. The boat is small but the engine is a real work horse! At times we had to sit near the front of the boat so that the front tip of the boat would be deep enough in the water. Mike gave us a good dive briefing before we got in the water. He said that he would "blow kisses" underwater every time he saw endemic species. We got in the water at a site called Kaawaloa and it wasn't long before Mike was blowing kisses left and right like a famous movie star! Not that unusual, I suppose, since 1/3 of the species found in Hawaii are endemic to the islands. The shear variety of fish was astounding. There were many different types of butterflyfish. It was pretty cool even though the last section of the dive was pretty sad due to the coral destruction from longline fishing. I was very light at the end of the dive and had to grab on to a rock wall at the end of the dive so I wouldn't pop up on my safety stop. This, of course, was the worst place to be due to the surge currents. Sure enough, I had quite a few cuts on my hand at the end of the dive. I don't know what it was but both my wife and I needed more weight than we usually do (we dive with our own gear).
The surface intervals are on the boat and there is no head so you will have to jump into the water to do your business. The water is a cool 78 F at this time of year so be sure to wear the proper thermal wear when you dive. The surface intervals are also not very long (1 1/2 hours is about the average). This, however, was not a problem according to my computer. The best part of the surface interval has to be the delectable cookies that Mike's wife Buffy makes. These have got to be among the best cookies I've ever had!! The joy is that you get them at every surface interval. This makes doing multiple dives with Aloha Dive Company almost obligatory. I had read about the famous cookies but never imagined that they would be so tasty!
Our next dive was at a site named "Long Lava Tube", which was one of my favorite places of the trip. The site is not that remarkable. It basically is a large field of coral with patches of sand here and there. As the name implies, though, there are lava tube swimthroughs. It was pretty cool to swim through a tunnel where lava had once flowed. What made this a good dive site, though, was the things that we found. We saw this little fish which looked like a small lionfish but was simply a young rockmover wrasse (the adults look NOTHING like the juveniles). We swum around and Earl kept on poking around different caverns. Finally he came out of one holding this blob which turned out to be a Spanish Dancer. He let the 12" nudibranch drift in the water and it began to wave and undulate. It was beautiful. After we looked at the amazing movements, Earl put it back where he found it. We continued to lazily move along when I saw this dark lump on a head of coral. I couldn't believe it, it was a Day Octopus. I've only seen octopi at night or early in the morning. They are usually pretty skittish and try to hide. This one, however, sat there in the wide open. As I approached to take a picture, though, the 2 foot octopus squirmed its way into a coral formation. This was not the last octopus that we would see. We accidentally bumped into another one and it fled, leaving a cloud of ink in its wake. At the end of the dive Earl pointed at a small coral. I couldn't see what he was pointing at. He stuck his fingers under the coral and out shot another octopus. It was really cool to see. We came up to the surface, got on to the boat and motored back to Keahou Bay. We were pretty tired due to jetlag, but could easily have continued diving. That is one of the nice parts about Kona, the diving is pretty easy. My wife usually gets tired after a couple of dives. My jaw dropped, therefore, when I heard her say after the 10th dive in 4 days "I could have gone a few more times". We decided not to push it too much on our first day, so we stopped after two dives. The next day, however, we planned to do four dives!
We got up the next morning and drove north of Kailua-Kona to Honokahau Bay to start our day with some local dives. Mike wanted to take us to a place where we could see some more fish, in particular the Flame Angelfish which is about 3 inches long and bright red with two black stripes. We dove in at a site named Kaiwi Pt. The current wasn't very strong (not abnormal for Kona). The visibility was also great at about 100 feet (also not uncommon). We did see lots of fish including the shy Flame and Potter's Angelfish along with schools of goatfish, racoon butterflyfish, undulated eels, and lots of others. It was a really nice dive. We surfaced and my mouth was salivating during the safety stop in anticipation of Buffy's cookies. We moved the boat to a place called Turtle Pinnacles for our second dive in hopes of seeing a turtle cleaning station. We went down and immediately saw two turtles swimming by as they left the cleaning station. We didn't see any more but Earl did point out some flame pipefish (which look like red coffee stirrers!) in a small cave. Earl has really good eyes and managed to find a scorpionfish and buried flounder that I would have easily missed. Turtle Pinnacles was a nice site but you could see that it has been heavily dived. It just doesn't look that pristine. It, however, was the only place where I saw turtles while diving in Hawaii.
We broke for lunch and agreed to meet Mike and Earl at 3 p.m. that afternoon for the Twilight/Manta Night dives. The mantas are no longer at the Kona Surf Hotel despite some recent articles that I read. They tend to show up near the airport near a site called Garden Eel Cove. We decided to go here for our twilight dive so that we wouldn't have to move. I strongly recommend going on a twilight dive since there is a lot of fish activity at this time such as last minute feeding and mating. Garden Eel Cove is an interesting dive site. You start near a landscape that looks like a sandy desert. The desert gives way to black sand as you swim further. If you look ahead you will see hundreds of garden eels sticking out from the sand. They quickly retreat as you get close but it is quite a sight! Mike navigated us into deeper waters to look for the rare bicolored anthis in a small coral head. Mike is really excited about little critters like this. He found what he was looking for and beckoned us to come look. We approached and could not control ourselves due to the surge current. The result was a cloudy mess of sand and fins coupled with a loud good-natured underwater expletive coming from Mike as the anthis sought refuge from the sandstorm. We did finally see him, though. We swam on and saw other interesting fish such as the Hawaiian Turkeyfish (related to the Lionfish) and mating goatfish. All in all, it was a pretty cool dive.
The manta dive can easily turn into a bust so don't get your hopes up too much when you go. Nature is fickle. You basically go down about 35 feet, make yourself comfortable, and shine a bunch of lights upwards. The idea is that the light will attract plankton, which will, in turn, attract the mantas. We were unlucky and didn't see any. Many books say that the dive is a total bust if the mantas don't show up. I didn't think so, though. It was neat to stick your hand out into the plankton and have all the goatfish suck your hand! We sat behind a rock and waited. I shifted my hand and felt movement next to my finger. I shone the light between me and the sand and saw the gaping mouth of a large undulated eel staring up at me. My wife and I quickly jumped off of the rock. We then saw him swim closer to the stationary lights to stalk the schooling goatfish and grunts. We shone our lights around and saw a few more eels taking the opportunity to hunt near the lights. It was quite a cool sight. Nevertheless, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed that we didn't see any mantas. We went home, cold and exhausted from a long day of diving.
Mike had promised me some sharks the first day we went diving. I wasn't expecting to see any but on November 21 he would make good on his promise.....big time! I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to try a remote dive. We motored our way down the coast to the southern part of the island for what seemed to be a very long time. We stopped at a cove with a pinnacle in it. We dove in to search for the "critters of the dive": the Hawaiian Lobster and the Tinker's Butterflyfish. Mike would often equate how rare a fish was by how much it would fetch on the aquarium market. The Tinker's Angelfish was a high dollar item. We went along a wall and didn't have to wait long to see the Tinker's or the Lobster. This was our first wall/drift dive and it was pretty interesting. The wall turned into a sloping coral field which had a lot more fish that we hadn't seen before (such as the Bandit Angelfish). Then, suddenly Mike made noises with wide eyes and placed his hand vertically over his head. I looked around quickly for the sharks. Then, there they came. Four BEAUTIFUL 10 foot hammerheads. Three of them passed in fron of us and the other one passed behind us. It was amazing to see these beautiful creatures with their sleek bronze/grey skin reflecting the light a mere 20 feet away. My wife and I were so stunned that we didn't even take a good picture (look closely at the picture we did shoot and you can see a hammerhead between me (on the left) and Mike (on the right)). It was amazing. We weren't done, though. As we dove on, Mike once again made the shark sign. Out of the dark came another beautiful 10 ft hammerhead. We continued to swim when....sure enough...more sharks....four of them! This was probably one of the best dives that I've ever done. It had a great combination of big animals, beautiful fish, great clarity, and nice topography. It was with a heavy heart that I had to surface.
The second dive of the day was at a place called "Outside 3-room Cave". This was almost anticlimatic after the first dive despite the fact that we saw schools of pyramid butterflyfish, juvenile rockmover wrasse (the one that looks like a small lionfish), and even another hammerhead at the end of the dive. This was a great day for diving. We took the afternoon and next morning off thinking that it could not have been any better than this. We were, of course, wrong. The morning group saw (and snorkelled) with an 18 foot whale shark. Oh, well....you win a few...you lose a few. We decided to go on another twilight/night combination for our last two dives in Hawaii. Mike suggested that we don't do a manta dive since they had been no-shows for the last two nights and the surge was strong. We agreed and went back to Kaiwi Point. Once again, the twilight dive gave us an interesting array of fish activity. We stayed at Kaiwi Point for the night dive as well and relaxed in between dives with...yes...another batch of cookies. The night dive was really nice. We saw lots of lobsters and fish (some change colors at night as camouflage!). We got a good view of large lined butterfly fish (about 1 ft long!). The best part, however, was when we followed a hunting undulated eel. Eels in Hawaii seem to me to be particularly active. This one didn't disappoint. We didn't have to wait long until he struck a surgeon fish. He could not hold on so he continued to hunt. He writhed into a coral head and...bang!...struck a sleeping Yellow Tang. He began to writhe around attracting the interest of another eel who came to try to snatch it away. He was unsuccessful as the Yellow Tang swam down the gullet of the first eel. It was quite a sight.
We were very happy with our diving in Hawaii as the narrative shows. Aloha Dive Company is a first class outfit! We saw unexpected delights and the fact that people did see mantas on the night we chose to go elsewhere did not take away from the extreme pleasure it was to dive in Kona! We were on the boat with many repeat customers and we could easily see why they kept coming back to dive with Aloha. This was a great trip. Mike and Earl were awesome!
Just Show Me the Diving Pictures