Kauai Advice

[janetrock]

I will be vacationing in Kauai Sept 25 thru Oct 2. What are the best shore dives in Kauai? How do I find out water, wind conditions before leaving my hotel? Is there one side of the island that is calmer this time of year tahn others?

I'd like to experience ostrocods during a night dive. Does anyone know anything about the moon phases, waxing and waning and how they affect ostrocod activity on Kauai? We plan to night dive on Sat, Sept 25 if we're not too jet lagged and definitely Sun, Sept 26. Anyone up for a night dive?

 

[dwaters]

Welcome to the 'board!!!

When I traveled to Hawaii, the locals gave me alot of great inside info...... check out their local forum and ask here:
Hawai'i 'Ohana - ScubaBoard

And while you're at it check out your local forum and join in the fun here:
Texas Swamp Divers - ScubaBoard

Enjoy

 

[adrenalinejunkie]

Welcome to the board.

I would suggest stopping by seasport divers. The stores(they had 2 location last year) will have maps showing all of the shore diving locations, and should be able to give insight on conditions. They also do 2 tank boat dives to areas that are not accessible from shore, but worth checking out.

One of the shore dives that we did more frequently was Koloa landing. Parking was not a problem, and it's a boat ramp so it's easy to enter and exit the water. Also there are plenty of things to see going out on either shoreline of the ramp.

If it's in the budget, I would definately try to get on a boat to Ni'ihau as the diving there is spectacular. There is a high probability of running into monk seals and sea turtles on the dives. The visibility here is also amazing.

 

[divergal65]

I'd pretty much second what adrenalinejunkie posted. We dove with Fathom 5 divers from Koloa town , a really super group of people. They have shore dives from Koloa landing, which can get a bit crowded because its a popular place for recently certified divers, but its not too bad. They also have boat trips to Niihau, but they say the waters can get rough coming and going. Our friends say its some of the best diving on the islands, so it might be worth a try...We'll try it next time.

 

[oceans11diver]

There is local group that would be happy to dive with you. Kauai shops are very expensive. You will be arriving towards the end of north shore diving which is tunnels beach a really great dive site but may require some experience as it has cavern swim thru's. If you have problems finding these divers contact me and I will be happy to help you out.

 

[janetrock]

Our vacation diving in Kauai begins this sunday. Anyone interested in doing some shore dives with us? Please reply privately. I only get these forum reports once per week. If you know how to change that setting let me know.

 

[corybaby]

I'd pretty much second what adrenalinejunkie posted. We dove with Fathom 5 divers from Koloa town , a really super group of people. They have shore dives from Koloa landing, which can get a bit crowded because its a popular place for recently certified divers, but its not too bad. They also have boat trips to Niihau, but they say the waters can get rough coming and going. Our friends say its some of the best diving on the islands, so it might be worth a try...We'll try it next time.




So Divergal
how did you like Fathom Five divers? Did you do any regular morning boat dives? crowded boats, etc??
Thanks!
Cory

 

[divergal65]

corybaby-
we liked them alot. For the shore dives we had Zoe as our guide and she was extremely thorough in her briefing - had a book with the fish/invert life we might see, as well as an uw laminated minibook with cool creatures on it for when we were diving.
We took a couple boat dives with them also and there were only two other couples on-board both times - different people though. same excellent predive briefings and the fish life was definitely better. We went to three fingers - nice easy dive with a few turtle sightings - don't touch! and Tunnels which is a series of lava caverns/tubes that can get pretty hairy to navigate if you're not familiar with it, definitely need a guide for those. We went in July, so it wasn't too inundated with tourists. Water temps were ~ 76-78 so we went with 3mm suits(no hood)and were fine.

 

[corybaby]

So it sounds like a good outfit....Thanks
I think we will be diving south shore as may be too rough in November, will report back then!:cool2::cool2::cool2::cool2::cool2::cool2::goingdown: