Big times on the Big Island

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joewr

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Location
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We are just back from the Big Island, Maui and Truk and this report will cover the Big Island. The latter two will follow later this week or next.

First and foremost, the diving was wonderful and met all our expectations. But a few housekeeping items...

Lodging: we stayed in a condo at the Aston Royal Sea Cliffs and it was fine; friends who were staying for a month were at the Sea Village down the road and they had a far superior lanai/view. If a condo is not your cup of tea, there were lots of other places for all sorts of budgets and life styles.

Food: We did not make it to Hilo, so I cannot comment on Pesto. Roy's at Wailea did not have a schedule that coincided with ours (they closed at 2 pm and opened at 5:30 and were one and a half hours from Kailua), but we have eaten many times at Roy's on Maui and loved it. If you head up-country, you should consider Coconut or Edelweis, but do not make the trip just for the food! Jameson's has great atmosphere--especially if you sit outdoors--but the food is not that special in our opinion. Safeway and KTA have lots of excellent raw materials if you choose to eat at home in a condo--the fresh fish is truly fresh! The Hawaiin fruits are just succulent and full flavored. And do not forget to try Lappert's ice cream or Furukawa's Original Maui Style Potato Chips. Yep, no problem keeping the calorie count up. However, we would avoid the tourist/shopping area for most meals--overcrowded and lower quality than we like.

The Diving! All that we expected and more. Remember Hawaii is not the Caribbean: there are few soft corals due to the surge and surf. The most common corals are lobe, cauliflower, plate, finger and antler. There is also the very elegant wire coral, neatly trimmed razor coral and occasional patches of exotic orange tube coral.

That said, I will continue with the details. We dove with the Sandwich Island Divers(The name the English gave to Hawaii was the "Sandwich Islands", after the Earl of Sandwich, Capt. Cook's benefactor). Steve and Lara Myklebust are the owner/operators and they really make you feel at home. Lara tends to run the shop, but can be seen captaining the boat from time to time. Steve, a graduate marine biologist, captains the boat on most days and dive masters half the dives. Walt served as our dive master on many dives: both he and Steve have excellent memories for sites and the regular denizens that populate them. We did not have an uninteresting dive in 14 attempts! The Hihimanu, their boat(the word means stingray in Hawaiin)takes six divers and one or two dive masters depending on whether someone is doing a refresher or his open water cert. They use the "loose" buddy system--i.e., a led dive if you want it, but when you run low on air you are directed back to the boat. They do a full safety discussion prior to the first dive every day, including going through hand signals and indicating when one should communicate air pressure. In addition, they check on your air pressure during the dive. They are very safety conscious.

The Fish: Wow, wow , wow. This is not Palau, but it is also not 17 to 24 hours of airplane ride! Thanks to Walt and Steve we saw frogfish, scorpionfish(one titan scorpion was so big that it filled the frame of a photo take with a Nikkor 20 mm lens), wire coral gobys, lionfish, rock movers (both adult and the dragon-like juvenile)a dragon wrasse and a leaf scorpionfish. Then there were the more common fish--common, but beautiful: orange spot and orange spine surgeons (I just never tire of seeing the latter with their neat little orange tail protusions), butterflies galore, angelfish galore, all sorts of wrasses, the occasional ray, etc. Then there were the invertebrates: octopi, lobsters--I was especially fond of the slipper lobsters, swimmer crabs, wire coral shrimp, nudibrancs in profusion, crown of thorn starfish. And on and on...

We dove places with names like Row Boat, Golden Arches, Big Arch, Pinnacle Peak, Garden Eels, Lead City, Air Station, Long Lava Tube, Driftwood, Kaloko, etc. and I cannot name a favorite--each one was special.

A word about the water--we were there in February and the water temp varied between 74 and 77 degrees--suit up accordingly. Summer is a lot warmer!

So, if you are looking for a nice place to dive where the drinking water is safe, where the flag has stars and stripes on it, where the people are friendly, and the water and fish are inviting, try Kona. There were a fair number of dive shops, but beware the "cattleboats". We were especially unimpressed with Kona Coast Divers. Jack's seemed okay, but our vote is for Sandwich Island Divers at sandive@aloha.net or http://www.sandwichisledivers.com.


Joewr
 
We just got back and had an awesome time. Did 4 boat trips and a shore dive, also did one boat trip and a shore dive at Oahu. The only thing we didn't see that I wanted to see was Manta Ray. But I saw everything else and than some. Garden eels, a gigantic tuna of some sort (our divemaster didn't even know what he was, probably weighed over 300lbs), octopus, juvenile rockmovers, 5-6 types of eels, and than some. I love the orange spine things and the moorish idols. We also heard humpbacks. Above water we had 3 whales almost swim into the boat. Baby was nursing. Lots of dolphins. And the best, an oceanic white tip shark (not a reef shark) that we got to snorkel with and the divemaster got a great video tape. We dove with Ocean Concepts in Oahu (ok but the safety briefing was over an hour,too big of boat/too many people for my taste) and Jack's Diving Locker on the big island. (they were fantastic, every one of them. I can't say enough great things about them and their videos are outstanding) We stayed at the Hale Kona Kai condos which was very nice and almost across the street from Jack's. Found a great fish store at the harbor and ate fresh fish (love that Island poke) everyday. I only gained 2.5 pounds in two weeks so I guess I burned lots of calories diving and snorkeling. I found the water comfortable with my 3mm farmer john/full sleeve top and a lycra or 1mm hood (I switched to the 1mm at night) Water was 77degrees and visibility was 50-100 feet depending on the dive. There is so much more variety of macrolife than Cozumel. I can't wait to go back but unfortunately this trip really set us back. Will have to work lots of extra weekends so I can do it again!
 
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