Can I shore dive Hanamau Bay?

[ameri180304]

So I've been to Hanamau Bay several times (I'm sure I spelled it wrong, but blah). I'm the only one in my family to have the open water (not advanced) from SDI (got it 6mo back). Anyhow, I was gonna take my mom, brother his wife and just myself to this place for a day or two. I was wondering, if they snorkel am I allowed to gear up and just go further and dive it?

I saw a few boats that offered a hanamau bay dive, but ill take boats on the other days. I guess I was just wondering if shore diving is available there.

Another question; if they do - do they have tanks and weights at the bottom or up that narly hill?

 

[liuk3]

I was freediving at around 40 ft and saw a Japanese OW class that came from the shore.

 

[scottitheduck]

Yes, you can dive it. Best to link up with someone who knows the entry and exit areas and watch the conditions. Been here 6 years and never dived it but know plenty who do..... trying to think of anyone in the Ohana who has. Guys???

G

 

[selo]

It is spelled Hanauma Bay.

As Gabe suggested, please hook up with someone who knows the dive site. I hope you are not planning to dive solo, unless you have the training for it?

Would you consider other sites? I was with Gabe today at YO-257 and San Pedro, and then at Kewalo Pipe. Awesome dives, with green moray eels, eagle rays, turtles, nudis, and more. Of course, a whale sighting on the way to the wrecks!

Safe diving,

 

[Black_3000psi]

think kanonfodr might be someone that's dove over there.

 

[VBlueV]

Hanauma Bay doesn't have tanks.
But you can grab tanks and weights from a dive shop just down the road..
they're friendly and have good equipment:
Contact Us for Oahu Scuba Diving Courses, Certification & Charters in Hawaii

From the "Local Reference" section of the O'Hana Board:
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/lo...-information-reviews-hawaiian-dive-sites.html
I posted this walk-thru of the Hanauma Bay shore dive from a couple years ago..
[they've since changed the channel marker buoys to white-cylinders and the submerged mooring buoy is gone]:

Hanauma Bay -- depth 60ft, viz 50-100ft, entry/exit in front of the second life-guard-tower.
if you go in the morning, plan on getting there early [before 9am]
[they'll close the parking lot if it gets full
and don't re-open it for a couple hours until a bunch of cars have left]
park you car and just lock your gear in it for now.
go to the ticket booth and pay your $5 admission.
[tourists only, residents of Hawaii are free =]
watch the "mandatory" 10 minute "don't touch the reef/fish" video.
[get the stamp on your hand after the movie]
walk down to the tram-shuttle loading area and buy an "all-day-tram-pass" for $2
[ensure to get the wrist-band]
also, purchase round-trip tickets for each tank you plan to use that day.
[it's $1 per tank, per trip... so $2 round-trip per tank]
[or... don't pay for the tram and just lug the stuff 150 yards
down AND up the 50% grade]
now, walk back to your car and gear up.
go back to the tram and ride it down.
walk past the showers, to the second life-guard-tower.
spot the orange-buoys ["basket-balls"] and enter the water.
swim to the "basket-balls" and find the gap in the rocks just past there.
surface swim past the inner reef break and pick-up the Trans-Pacific-Telephone-Cable
[you'll see two cables side-by-side on the bottom beginning at the rock-gap]
submerge around the mooring-buoy (for your dive flag?) or in about 15-20 feet of water.
follow the cable out until half-a-tank
[usually coincident with reaching 60 feet in depth]
in mid Mar, 'swam into a huge school of 2-3 foot jacks.
there's always plenty of turtles, eels, all of the colorful aquarium fish Hanauma is known for.
return following the cable back thru the reef-break.
if you have enough air, try to stay submerged until you're back at the orange-buoys
[sometimes there's a slight current and it's easier to crawl your way through that gap
rather than surface-swim]
shower-off, then get on the tram and ride it up.
at the top, buy a $10 cheese-burger from their captive-audience-cafe =P
repeat as necessary.

Happy Diving!

 

[smellzlikefish]

A couple quick notes.
-Because boats are not allowed inside the bay, it is one of the only places in Hawaii where you do not need a dive flag.
-Viz is usually best on an incoming tide.
-Get there early or the parking lot may fill up.
-I usually save some air to hand-over-hand it past the buoys as there is often an outgoing current.
-The orange balls described in vbluev's post are now white buoys.
-The mouth of the bay can be spectacular, but the currents there get overwhelming. Take a guide if you are at all unsure.

 

[ZackSS]

I shore dive Hanauma all the time and VBlueV's run through is pretty spot on. The prices are more expensive now and the buoys are now white cylinders, but the procedure is still the same.

Hanauma's a pretty safe dive site, so while I wouldn't suggest you do any new site solo, in my opinion it's not necessary to have an experienced guide. Just follow the cable out and back and keep some air in your tank for crawling through the channel if the current is bad (even if that means surfacing and going back down at the channel). It's not always bad, but if it is you'll be happy you had it.

No tanks or weights available at Hanauma, you need to rent them elsewhere and bring them with you. You can consider walking down in your gear depending on your tolerance for that, but I would suggest bringing money for the ride back up ($1 per person + $1 per tank). The other important point is to go watch the video first and get your hand stamped by a guy at a little stand on the way back out, THEN gear up. We'll usually build our tanks, put our wetsuits on halfway, and then walk down. Be a little careful with the stamps, they wipe off easily.

 

[bluemagoo]

Yes, you can dive it as well described be vbluev and zackss. But it sounds like you're thinking solo and if so, I second selo's concern -- I almost got taken out. It was a nav error compounded by surge and surf; I missed the "Backdoor" exit. I got shoved and pinned by the following surf into a reef depression just deep enough for the waves to continuously wash over my snorkel. My arms got pinned at my sides so that I couldn't recover my reg or even simply pushup to catch a breath. No choice but to hold my breath and wait for the set to finish rolling in, then logroll just enough to free my arms.

It's fairly shallow (15-30ft) until about midway out the Bay. The surge and clarity might not be what you like until you get farther out. I haven't been very far beyond Witche's Brew but I heard it's really nice.

There's a way to gauge the outgoing current strength at the Slot. Looking out to sea, there's a general counter clockwise current with the water incoming through the Backdoor and exiting through the cable channel/Slot. Basically, if you look down from the access road, Backdoor is marked with buoys on the left, the Slot is marked with the buoys to the right. Most days you'll see the surf breaking bigger over the Backdoor than it does at the Slot.

Again looking down from the road, you'll notice deeper blue spot inside the reef, just to the right of the Slot. This is Sandman's Patch; about 10ft deep. There's a large rock formation on the seaward side that you can swim all around. It's actually a bit hollow with passages to look through; loaded with soldierfish Look for a cleaner wrasse station on the right side. Here is an opening to the underside of the formation. With luck, you may catch a glimpse of a whitetip reef shark napping. Poke around the right side border of Sandman's; there's another hole where a whitetip sometimes spends the day.

As for the main swimming area, one challenge is to find panther flounders. Skimming the bottom is the easiest technique.

p.s. The tsunami pushed the buoys about 5m shoreward. On Sunday, one of the local bruddahs (not sure if he was staff) spent some time diving down and humping the huge anchor stones back into position -- they do that kind of thing anyway as conditioning for big surf. There was still some small rubbish floating in the water and along the high water mark which was about to the grassy areas.

 

[ameri180304]

Everytime I post on this forum, I tend to get negative responses out of people, lol... I'm aware of the concerns of diving. Did I plan on doing it alone? Yes.... Do I have anyone else to go with me? No.... So does that mean I dont go it at all? No... I used to surf alot, I consider myself a good swimmer and I wouldn't swim all that far out (maybe several few hundred yards); more than I did all the other times I went to snorkel... Nothing narly like swimming all the way out or anything. I mean going out a few hundred yards, max depth 20-30 feet should be just fine right? I dont see why not -- this will be in about 2 months