oceancat
Contributor
Hi. I just got back from 12 days in Hawaii--unfortunately I had to work for 5 of them, but still better than staying at home! I did a total of 10 dives--6 with Kaimana Divers in Waikiki area of Oahu and 4 with Kona Diving Company in Kona. With Kaimana divers, I was disappointed. Maybe they were having a bad week? They are a very safe operation and know what they are doing. They will pick you up from your hotel too, which is awesome. My first day of diving was to the Corsair and a site very close to there--they had mentioned maybe doing some sea caverns or something like that, but instead we went to an area with mostly dead coral and a few turtles. Not sure why, as seas were pretty calm, but a lot of seasick people on the boat. Take your bonine before you dive! The second day, morning dives were excellent, although they don't have nitrox, nor was it explained to me how to go about getting nitrox from nearby shops. On deeper dives, I just prefer to dive with it. I wasn't terribly comfortable with a 29min surface interval, even though the second dive to Nautilus Reef was shallow. For the afternoon, I had signed up for shallow dives prior to my trip and got lumped in with a Discover Scuba class. I wasn't informed this was going to happen until my stuff was already on the boat and I was paying. I love to be in the water, so still did it, but spent the first 16 minutes of my dive circling the anchor line, getting really annoyed I was circling an anchor line as the student struggled with her descent. Not the student's fault and she did great once she did get down. The instructor was patient and supportive of her. However, I do not think one should be grouping people who have never been in the water before with experienced divers. The afternoon dives were also on a shared boat (they don't own boats, but charter them) and the second dive of the afternoon (the discover scuba person left and didn't do the dive) was the same dive as i did earlier in the day at Nautilus Reef. That was disappointing, as there are so many dive sites (and few out that afternoon). Then, 2/3 of the way through my dive, an instructor from a different shop on the boat dropped her diver off with our group. That changed the entire tenor of the dive. The whole afternoon was just weird. Although the am dives were OK to Amazing (Sea Tiger is a cool wreck), I would skip the afternoon dives. Stayed at the Doubletree because work paid for it. Wouldn't stay there for vacation.
On the Big Island, I dove with Kona Diving Company, which is one of the best dive ops I have ever been in the water with! I love looking at critters and their entire staff was super excited to see animals of all sorts. They were a very friendly group of people who love to dive. They have their own boat. It was a lot of fun. They are also relaxed in terms of bottom time--I got two 80+ minutes dives (they were shallow the second half of each dive and just awesome!). They do have nitrox. They would drop people off at the boat as they got low on gas and then we would continue our dive. Definitely if you are on the Big Island, do more than just the Manta Dive--it is so amazingly beautiful there. It was my first experience with Indo-Pacific fish (or the Hawaiian variants of them) and that was fantastic. The Manta dive was really really good. I didnt' think I would like being in a large group with so many divers (7 boats in the cove that night) sitting around trying to build up plankton with lights, but once the mantas come in... WOW. The one case where more divers is better. The shops all work together to make this happen and it is great to see that collaboration. Take video if you can. I have some stills, but my video is much better. Our boat got about 7 min at the end where it was just us with the mantas. Really neat. Stayed at Kona Riviera Villas --very reasonably priced--not fancy, but clean and very close to the ocean.
On the Big Island, I dove with Kona Diving Company, which is one of the best dive ops I have ever been in the water with! I love looking at critters and their entire staff was super excited to see animals of all sorts. They were a very friendly group of people who love to dive. They have their own boat. It was a lot of fun. They are also relaxed in terms of bottom time--I got two 80+ minutes dives (they were shallow the second half of each dive and just awesome!). They do have nitrox. They would drop people off at the boat as they got low on gas and then we would continue our dive. Definitely if you are on the Big Island, do more than just the Manta Dive--it is so amazingly beautiful there. It was my first experience with Indo-Pacific fish (or the Hawaiian variants of them) and that was fantastic. The Manta dive was really really good. I didnt' think I would like being in a large group with so many divers (7 boats in the cove that night) sitting around trying to build up plankton with lights, but once the mantas come in... WOW. The one case where more divers is better. The shops all work together to make this happen and it is great to see that collaboration. Take video if you can. I have some stills, but my video is much better. Our boat got about 7 min at the end where it was just us with the mantas. Really neat. Stayed at Kona Riviera Villas --very reasonably priced--not fancy, but clean and very close to the ocean.
