A report! :admin:
We went with Kona Diving Company and had a fabulous time. The highlights for me were the dolphins, the mantas (of course), and the almost constant and very LOUD whalesong we heard throughout all four dives.:fruit:
We went out in the morning and did two dives in the AM. My husband is a new diver and hasn't been diving at all since Saba 2.5 years ago, so they asked him to do a refresher dive. For the first dive, I stayed with the rest of the group while he did a one-on-one dive with Billy and they went through a few paces. Unfortunately I was one of the few divers who did not see a 10' manta glide by during this dive, and my husband and Billy also saw an octopus when they were done with their refresher and had some air left. I did not see the octopus either. No fair.
During our surface interval we were buzzed by dolphins, so we hopped in and snorkeled with them for awhile. Our second dive, we had a pod of dolphins swim by at the end as well, and that was pretty cool.
After a couple hours on dry land, we headed back out and our divemaster was Jason. Mantas had not been seen the previous two nights, and as a result, many people cancelled so we had a group of only three of us and our DM. The whalesong was very loud on the third dive of the day, and again we were buzzed by dolphins about 15 feet away about midway through the dive. It was interesting to see fish starting to go to sleep as the day waned. Here we saw garden eels, which we had seen before in Saba but enjoyed again. We also continued to see the expected endemic fish that we had seen all day, including the black long-nosed butterfly which is found only off the coast of Kona.
Thankfully we did have mantas on our fourth dive! They were present immediately upon dropping into the water, and one with a 12-foot wingspan (supposedly named Vicki) swam into my head within 60 seconds of descent.
I do not typically enjoy night dives but this was a unique and fascinating experience. As anyone who has done this dive knows, there are many divers arranged roughly in a circle to watch the mantas feed off a large lamp in the center. The many flashlights illuminating columns and columns of silver flagtail fish made for an aquarium feel, and the mantas are the size of smartcars so they are just incredible to watch.
4 dives in one day is a lot for me and unfortunately I sustained a minor middle ear issue because I had allergies during these dives which made equalization not great. But I would not have missed them for the world and it's easily worth it.
Many thanks to everyone on this board who helped me plan and if you're out there, thank you Kona Diving Company for a great experience!
