Hawaii trip report (Oahu and Big Island)

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sauruman

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Ontario, Canada
Hello everyone and once again, thanks for your advice pre and during the trip. We put it to very good use.

While my time in Honolulu was pretty much consumed by work, my wife and I did sneak in a bit of fun. We dove the wreck of the Mahi and a site called Turtles with Aaron's. We picked Aarons specifically because they ran small groups (6 packs) and serviced the western side which I was quite interested in. The Mahi was in a word awesome. It sits in about 100' of water and is showing its age (it really isn't safe to penetrate). Notable on this was a pod (?) of 15 eagle rays that were cruising the area. They circled the ship and we schooled with them. It was almost spritual. Being that it was my first dive with a camera I'm afraid I didn't get any pictures that do this justice. Vis was just good (~70 feet) and there was some surface surge/current. Down below things were pretty calm. Oh, there was the usual assortment of pretty fish here too as well as a school of puffer fish (or maybe they were porcupine fish). Very cool dive in any event.

Turtles was a long, shallow leisurely dive. Some hard coral formations, more pretty fish, some nudibranchs and at the end a green sea turtle.

On the other leisure day we drove around the island, stopping to snorkel at Hanauma Bay. The vis was pretty mediocre due to the surf breaking in the shallows, but it got better about 150-200 meters from shore. Saw more turtles here as well as trumpet fish and more of the usual pretties. I think it would make an alright dive but as a snorkel site its merely okay. The scenery is pure Hawaii however, meaning beautiful.

We hiked up Diamond Head - that's worth doing for sure. Nice view of the city from way up there. Lots of stairs. Its more fun going down than up. :)

In terms of restaurants we tried several, and I'd recommend a couple:
1) Cheeseburgers in Paradise. Okay paint me as a tourist, but I liked it here. The food was good and reasonably priced. Also, it was close to our hotel (Radisson Prince Kuhio)
2) Keneke's in Waimanalo - local plate lunch place with lots of character (it's also a church and a power lifting gym). Cheap, simple food. We loved the Kalua pork and steak fries. They serve glasses of lemonaid the size of your head! Two thumbs up!
3) Duke's (in the Outrigger, Waikiki) - mid-priced but great steak and excellent Pina Coladas. You will need reservations if you don't want to wait 1.5 hours for a table. They had a live band the night we went. All you can eat salad bar with any meal. Oh yeah, we saw Ron Jeremy here. <grin>

Other than that, we tried surfing and drove up around the north shore. Overall very much fun. I ended up liking Oahu more than I though I would.

----continued-----
 
glad you had an enjoyable time on O'ahu. Diamond Head is quite the hike. I did it in the summer and it was super hot. The white spotted eagle rays are always at the Mahi. They make the whole dive. The west is a favorite side for me. Makaha Caverns is the best site. Next visit you will have to do it. Keneke's is my all time favorite when I am on the windward side. There is a small hole-in-the-wall spot close by the airport called "da big kahuna's" and Lynda Carter's (wonderwoman) sister owns it. Looking forward to your dive report from the big island.

Melissa
 
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On the Big Island, we stayed at the Kona Tiki. It was very clean and the managers and other guests were very pleasant. No frills like TV or telephones, but that's okay. Extremely relaxed and friendly is how I would characterise the place. My only complaints with it were noise and parking. It is sandwiched between the road and the ocean. The surf was so loud that sleeping at night was a problem even with ear plugs. During the day, road noise is quite apparent. That said, we didn't spend much time in the room, so it didn't matter much and the price was right; <$100/night including taxes for an oceanfront room with a kitchenette. They have coolers, boogie boards and umbrellas to borrow for a day at the beach. As I mentioned, parking would get very tight at night, forcing us to pretty much park on the shoulder of the road on a couple of occasions. It comes with a continental breakfast (bagels and muffins, coffee and fruit) each day.

We did the night manta dive with Jacks Diving Locker. Highly recommended dive. Keller was a hoot. Saw two mantas (Lefty and Bertha). Before dark we dove the same site and saw lots (garden eels, nudis, wrasses, and even a dwarf moray. Cute little guy). The staff was good and we got underway promptly, the boat handled the number of passengers fairly well (there were 12 divers and 4 snorkelers aboard). I still prefer diving 6-packs however. <grin>

Jacks runs a professional operation, but they do seem to nickle and dime a bit. It'll cost you if you forgot anything other than weights or tank. Lights cost extra (Big Island includes these) and some poor lady got shaken down $6 for booties for a single dive. Yow!

For our shore diving, we rented gear from Big Island divers. $20 gets you a tank for a week and you can get fill cards ($35 for 10 fills) -or- $7.50/tank for 24+ hours and it comes with the fill. I say + because we picked up the tanks at 8am and they wanted them back by 6pm THE NEXT DAY. Wow. Top notch value - I was impressed. Fills without the card were $5 and were good (all at 3k or a bit over). They also gave good advice on the sites and their layouts.

Shore dove two step several times (4) because it was so awesome. Easy entry and exit, tons to see and you can pick whatever profile you want - shallow or deep to your own liking. Also, the water was calm even when the surf was making entry/exit at other sites (Pukao, mile 4, etc) pretty gnarly. We tried others, but kept coming back here. Can't recommend this one enough. If you are going to the Big Island and even thinking about diving, come here. Oh yeah, did I mention it's free and relatively uncrowded? While here check out the hard corals (as far as the eye can see in places) and the elusive completely black long nose butterfly fish. Never got a good picture of this guy. :-(
We also happened upon groups of turtles at cleaning stations. Two thumbs way up.


On non-dive days we checked out Hapuna beach and the one at the Mauna Kea. Hapuna is better and less trouble to get into. Check out the little lagoon to the right of the main beach. It also has more extensive facilites available and is bigger. less shade though.

We also drove up to the top of Mauna Kea (saddle road rocks!) for a look at the observatories and a nice hike. It is beautiful. do it. It is also cool(ish). Bring a coat. 4 celcius when we were there. Take lots of water too. It is easy to get dehydrated at 13,700 some odd feet.

We did a helicopter tour of the Volcano (through Tropical helicopters). This is also recommended if you are at all interested. Much better prices if you go from Hilo. Hilo also has a nicer market than Kailua, IMO. We visited a couple of black sand beaches and a hot spring in Puna as well. Contrary to most people's experience (I'm told) we got sunny weather the whole time there. Yay!

Hiked out to see lava flow at night. That was tiring after a 5am start that day, but also worth it. We got back to the room at ~1am. YAWN!

Food was merely okay in Kailua. Nothing really stands out. The burgers at Lava Java were decent. The brewpub was pretty good too.

We did the luau at the Royal Kona and enjoyed it. I really dig Kalua pig and Mai Tais. YUM!


Anyhow, that's pretty much it. I've posted our pictures here:
http://www.isletech.net/gallery/Hawaii2005

Feel free to check 'em out. I still have some renaming to do and figure out why some galleries aren't showing a 'cover picture' but other than that, it is a random sampling of our adventure.

In short, Hawaii = great. It sucked going back to work this week.

Take care everyone and a final Mahalo for all of your help!
 
Same here, Keneke's Rocks...it is worth the long line wait! BTW, here is the recipe for the pork, if you get a longing :wink:

Glad you had a good time and that you were able to enjoy the Mahi. I am pretty sure it was the puffers you saw, a group of them usually hover near the mast, and 15 rays? almost beat our record of 18 :D
 
justleesa:
Same here, Keneke's Rocks...it is worth the long line wait! BTW, here is the recipe for the pork, if you get a longing :wink:

THANK YOU! We are deep in withdrawal and will put this to good use. :)


justleesa:
Glad you had a good time and that you were able to enjoy the Mahi. I am pretty sure it was the puffers you saw, a group of them usually hover near the mast, and 15 rays? almost beat our record of 18 :D

That is sooooo cool. Love them Eagle rays.
 
Very welcome :D, and next time you're here gimme a hollar :wink:
 
Sounds like you did both islands good. Nice pics. The "aloha" at Place of Refuge reminds me of the sea-cucumbers with graffiti on them, usually a "hi" made with a finger brushing off the sand normally coating them. Too bad you missed a shot of the black/darkbrown longnose. But wait till you see the one with the hole in its body; the hole's probably a genetic defect. The "group" shot of telescopes on Mauna Kea include, from left to right: the one that looks like a toilet-paper roll is the British James Clerk Maxwell submillimeter scope, the silver golf ball is the Caltech submillimeter, and in the background are the Subaru and twin Keck scopes (I know a couple of guys up there; one at the Caltech and the other at the Canada-France-Hawaii). There's also a small melt lake up there (I think your pic of a dark cinder cone is pointed in its general direction) and an ancient quarry famous for its extremely dense basalt used to make tools (adze heads mainly) and traded throughout all the islands. A unique bug lives up there. It's called the wekiu and has a kind of anti-freeze for blood; it survives on whatever insects get blown up from lower elevations. A kind of wolf spider also lives there.
 
sauruman:
----continued------

Anyhow, that's pretty much it. I've posted our pictures here:
http://www.isletech.net/gallery/Hawaii2005

Feel free to check 'em out. I still have some renaming to do and figure out why some galleries aren't showing a 'cover picture' but other than that, it is a random sampling of our adventure.

In short, Hawaii = great. It sucked going back to work this week.

Take care everyone and a final Mahalo for all of your help!




Nice pictures and reports. Did you go meet Ron Jeremy or just get his picture? I would have had to go ask for an autograph. Not that I am a fan of his work.

Melissa
 
Shore dove two step several times (4) because it was so awesome. Easy entry and exit, tons to see and you can pick whatever profile you want - shallow or deep to your own liking.

Suaruman
Where is this site? I can't locate on shorediving.com. We'll be there Oct 30 and diving with Jack's as well.
 
Thanks for sharing the trip reports! Its always fun to read other's dive experiences.

Glad you enjoyed Oahu's west shore diving. As Melissa said - next time you go out west, you'll have to check out Makaha Caverns, it is a great dive as well...

Aloha!
 

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