Trip Report 8/1-8/8: Kona Aggressor II

I tried to post this yesterday but I don't think it posted so I'll write the same trip report again........

Well all, just as I predicted - the liveaboard lifestyle is definitely for me. It was especially nice before and after the manta ray night dive when all the day boats were sitting out there with their cold sopping wet wetsuits, cramped together with a long cold ride back to the harbor and there we were just sitting and sipping drinks in warm dry clothes from the sun deck. I think the other boat captains hate it when the Aggressor shows up because it really shows them up in ways they can't control.....OH WELL!!!!

Getting there:
Anyway, getting to Kona was quite easy since I live in Honolulu - just a short 25 min flight. I had a 2 hour delay but I called the boat's cell number provided to me in my cruise package and they adjusted my pickup time accordingly. They dropped me off at the pier to walk around Kona and they took care of my luggage - it was that easy!

The diving:
Kona's diving is all about clear water, coral gardens that look different than what you're used to if you dive the Caribbean or the South Pacific with the worlds highest concentration of endemic organisms - you won't see them anywhere else in the world because of Hawaii's geographic isolation. You might see sharks, you'll probably see mantas, most likely turtles, and we even got to swim with pilot whales which according to the crew is few and far between but between dives 2 and 3 we eat lunch offshore (which was not bumpy by the way) and the captain looks for dolphins and pilot whales to see and swim with should you feel so inclined.

The schedule is 5 dives a day - one after a hot breakfast(08:00), eat a snack, dive 2 (10:30) at the same location......eat lunch and move to site #2 - this is a good time for a nap, dive 3 at 02:00pm, eat a snack, dive 4 at 04:30pm, eat an awesome dinner and if you haven't had anything to drink in the way of alcohol then you can dive the night dive at 07:30. I missed two dives during the week so I only did 25 dives - one of them I did free diving for added challenge and fun (but that's just me). Make sure you don't miss AuAu Crater and The Hive - those were my two favorite sites.

The food:
Chef Doug made some awesome dishes - everything from stir fry, to scallops, to one day where we BBQ'd, the breakfasts were awesome with hot and cold selections, lunches and dinners with mixed greens to start, and everything in between. Let them know if you have special dietary requirements but tell them as far in advance as you can because they have to plan for it.

I won't bore you with the dive by dive details - just remember that the small stuff in Hawaii is what you should be looking for more so than the big stuff in my opinion. But don't forget to look out into the blue - you never know what might be cruising by in the way of dolphins, pilot whales, mantas, turtles, or eagle rays.

I'm sure you all have some questions regarding specifics so I'll be checking periodically to answer them - hope you all consider this vessel. I've lived in Hawaii 10 years so yeah, I would've liked to have went to Palau, or Belize, or Fiji or wherever for my first liveaboard but I had to get new gear this year so I saved for the trip and didn't want to spend a bunch on airfare so Kona - which I've dove 3 or 4 other times was my first choice in destinations close by. I'll be going to Papua New Guinea 4/23-5/3 on the Star Dancer - so it's time to start pinching pennies again. So long!

Eat, Sleep, Dive,

Eric

Glad to hear you had what sounds like a wonderful time on the Kona Aggressor. My son and I did it 2 years ago and we had a great time. Good to hear it's still up to what we experienced.

Thnx for sharing this report

Thanks for the great report and looking forward to our trip on the 22nd. What sorts of endemics should we look for? Also, husband is allergic to tomatoes. We sent a note when we booked but should we let someone else know? Thanks!

Give Aggressor a call about dietary request and then the week prior on Saturday call the boat's cell and see if the captain can get the word about your husband's tomato issue.

Endemics, well there's a ton. I'm not sure if it's endemic, but check out the Vericose Phylidium nudibranch, I took my best photo of the week with that invertebrate as my subject. The nudibranchs are alot of the great endemics that I love looking out for as well as the flat worms. The Comerson's Frogfish is not endemic but alot of fun to look for. As opposed to naming the endemics, since it changes from site to site, ask the divemaster during each briefing what are some of the exciting endemics to search for. AuAu Crater was my favorite site, with all the black sand it vaguely reminded me of the pictures I've seen of people diving Lembeh Strait in North Sulawesi.

Let me know what else you guys want to know, I'd love to share the info.

Hi, how were the water temperatures, and what kind of wetsuit did you wear? I'm heading out on this same trip shortly and bringing my 5/4/3. I don't tend to get very cold, so it might be a little too much, but it's what I have! Thanks!

The water temps were about as warm as they get here in Hawaii - 78 or 79 or so. I wore a 3mm fullsuit and brought along an additional 3mm shorty but only wore it once because the extra weight needed was a pain in the butt. It was pretty unnecessary. But some people wore 5mm, you should be fine especially if you're not too sensitive to cold. This is a good time of year to go temperature wise. Winter you'd need a hood but not really at this time of year unless you dive there every day.

Thanks for the report. I for one, would not be bored by any details of your dives you offer to write. In fact, I'd like to hear more about the diving, and pictures would be great too.
I'm thinking about my next LA trip, and Kona is so easy to get to that I have to consider it. My only prev. diving experience in Hawaii was long ago, but as I recall it was some some pretty dull dives on Oahu (I'm sure there's much better there too).
-Eric

One more thing all......this goes for any liveaboard - whether you're wearing full foot fins or booties, wear some protection like neoprene socks. Thankfully a couple on the boat offered me a pair to wear and even keep - they saved my feet. By day three I couldn't even kick my feet - once I put the socks on and then my booties it saved my feet.

I've lived in Hawaii 10 years and have dove Kona (either free diving or scuba diving) 4 different times - and I didn't get bored on this trip. Oahu is a bit ho-hum in some spots but Kona is much better.

Alot of the diving in Kona is on drop offs, not walls, just gradual but very noticeable drop offs - you're close to shore and the water gets deep quick. You'll do 2-3 dives at each site (2 in the morning and 3 in the afternoon including the night dive) and you'll usually loop around to the deep and then into the shallows at the end of the dive. Most of the bottom time was around 45-60 minutes.

We did Rob's Reef and the Hive the first day. The hive was a neat dive which looped around in the deep on the drop off and when we finished up in the shallows there was a 4 room cave that was huge inside - it was actually a lava tube. Look for banded coral shrimp and red hawaiian lobster in these overhead environments - which were easy and safe to get into and out of.

The second day we dove at Paradise Pinnacle in the morning and the Maze in the afternoon. Now the first day I was living the dream and really taking photos of some amazing stuff but not really detailed photos - so the second day the sites were a little different. Turtle Pinnacle was an undersea seamount (actually 2 seamounts) - watch for wire coral gobies - they're tiny and live on wire coral along the drop offs. The Maze was a veritable coral garden, but I didn't make any noteable findings there. I sat out the second dive there (4th dive of the day) because the reef is deep and I got down to 102ft so I wanted to off gas more for the night dive. I did enjoy hot lush the coral was - it's not something you see alot in Hawaii. I wasn't as impressed with the day 2 sites, and I feel like such a spoiled brat saying that and feel horrible for admitting it, but for whatever reason the Maze was not one of my top sites. But by no means is it a bad site and DO NOT miss it - you never know what you may find or perhaps what did we not see while WE were down there!

The third day we dove at Never Never Land in the morning - it's a pinnacle that rises about 40 feet out of the water. The dive is down to the pinnacle and back, check for hammerheads cruising by - we didn't see any pelagics but apparently they're pretty common to be seen there. We managed to find pilot whales offshore after lunch - myself, two of the instructors, and one other guest jumped in and swam with them. It was truly a blast - possibly my highlight of the trip. We even saw a female with her baby in her mouth which appeared dead, sadly she was probably grieving the death of a still born calf. We let her swim to the depths to be alone while the rest stayed with us a while - we got in the water 4 times over the course of 45 minutes with these things - the crew said it was pretty rare to see this happen. I feel truly blessed to have experienced this. The second site of the day AuAu Crater - an awesome site for any macro photographer. It starts on a black sand flat with coral heads and finger reefs leading to the drop off and when you make your way back you dive an actual wall that is basically like a toilet bowl going down to over 140ft. It was a really neat place - I think my favorite site of the trip. Watch for the usual suspects, but bring your macro kit or at least a magnifine glass if you're not a photographer, check out the detail on all of the tiny stuff. With all the black sand, I was keeping my eyes peeled for mantis shrimp, check them out in the critter guide. They are a very interesting creature that we do in fact have here in Hawaii, and I never found it on this trip or any other diver here in 10 years - but one day I'll find one. Keep your eyes peeled, if you find one you have gold in my opinion - I'd love a few good pics of these things.

The fourth dive day we had was at the following sites: lions den, driftwood, mantaville. Lions den was known for it's lion fish which we saw 4-5 on just one site. Driftwood we just did our 3rd dive at - it had some nice overhangs a great place to look for white tip sharks. We didn't see any but they are routinely spotted there. Mantaville is the manta ray night dive - we drop in on the mantas after everyone on the day boats has settled down. We spotted 4-5 mantas on that night dive - many folks said it was the best dive of the trip.

The fifth dive day was at Turtle Pinnacle, Garden Eel Cove. Turtle Pinnacle was a site where turtles are routinely spotted - again we didn't see any but I've seen hundreds of those things over the years - I wasn't broken up over it. It was still another great critter site. Garden Eel Cove has garden eels in the deep - they are virtually impossible to get a close up shot of but you'll see them in the distance - they can get up to about 3 feet or more out of the sand - bigger than other varieties elsewhere in the world. No mantas when we hit this site as the night dive but nonetheless a great site for many eels sitings.

The Aquarium - look for endemic butterflyfish. It's truly an excellent site for fish life - AND we finally spotted a comerson's frogfish - I did the second dive here as a snorkeling/free diving challenge. I love shooting photos in 40 feet of water and dropping down in stealth on the critters - it's a fun challenge.

My top photos of the week (pretty much all macro photos) can be found at:
http://williamsonfamily2.shutterfly.com. Look in the album titled Aggressor top photos 8/1-8/8. Let me know what you think the best photo of the top 12 is.

The dives sorta ran together as I look back on it all just a few days removed - but the experience is something I'll never forget. As I said, Papua New Guinea on Star Dancer Apr 23-May 3, 2010 - someone come join me - there's already some folks booked on the boat so book it soon!

Let me know if you have additional questions about the trip....I love helping out whoever is curious.

Eric

Thanks for the trip report.