Insider Information - Local diving

[justleesa]

Diver Dies Near Spitting Caves, Honolulu Advertser

In the past 25 years, as a boat captain, dive master and scuba instructor, I have seen my share of police, fire department, DNLR, and coast guard risking their lives to save others in the Spitting Cave, China Wall - Portlock area.

I would like to throw out a few pointers to the swimmers, non-swimmers, surfers, free divers, commercial and non-commercial scuba divers.

First of all, Portlock/ Spitting Caves can be a beautiful experience if the ocean conditions are as follows:

Little to no south swell, light NE or N trade winds, incoming tide (low to high) when the current direction runs towards Diamond Head.
So, when the surf is 4' plus and the trade winds are blowing strong (20 mph plus and the current (tide) is high to low, towards Makapu'u --- go see a movie.

When in doubt, don't go out.

Aloha,
Captain Joey
Joe Zbin

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

Aloha,

There is an important old saying "Don't believe everything you read". For example; the Corsair did not have engine trouble, the pilot did not bail out and it did not go down in '45, contrary to a number of posts and links in this thread. The pilot made a dead stick landing after running out of fuel, in 1946. Verbaly I've been told he was turned away from his first approach and ran out before making a second try, but I can not verify that info on line.

Magazine articles about Hawaii diving are exagerated pieces of sales fiction at best, totally ignorant at worst. A magazine recently called Rainbow Reef one of the ten best dives in the State and that's ignorant even before the sewage spill. One big time editor told readers the YO-257 was a 100ft submarine (Yacht Oiler?), wrote you can see Waikiki from the Corsair (x-ray vision?), sees Tiger Sharks at the Mahi and Green Sea Turtles at Molokini. For those not in the know, only the Tiger Sharks are possible, but highly unlikely. For impending visitors the truth is very hard to find.

My favorite dive site resource is http://www.hawaiiscubadiving.com/. They list a lot of dive sites and they would probably list more if you email them. I do not agree with all their opinions, consistant with human nature, but they allow us to post additional reviews of the sites. Working together this way we could build an accurate record of Hawaii diving. I have submitted and will continue to submit reviews of sites I'm intimate with (20+ dives). Imagine if we compiled a few informative reviews for each site in the state. Our guests would be able to find a much better answer than in this haystack.

Mahalo