Based on some outstanding reviews of Kona Diving Company here on Scuba Board, we chose to dive with them this trip and can’t wait to return! Our flight from Dallas arrived Saturday afternoon and we drove straight from the Kona airport to the dive shop in Kailua-Kona. We completed our paperwork and dropped off our BC’s and regulators so they could be set up on the boat for us when we arrived at the harbor the next morning. After each dive, the shop staff would rinse these items and our wetsuit, hang them to dry, and have them set up on the boat for us the next morning!
During our week on the Big Island, we dove five morning two tank dives and the afternoon/night dive at Garden Eel Cove to see the manta rays. Our Dive Master for the morning dives was owner Kerry Key, who was fabulous at finding and showing us many new creatures we had never seen before this trip. Her pace was perfect for photography. The groups were small, we never had more than four divers In our group. We were allowed to dive as long as our air would last. Our longest dive was about 75 minutes. On the manta ray dive, our Dive Master, was Luke Mason and we really enjoyed diving with him as well.
There were soft drinks, trail mix, Goldfish, hot water for hot chocolate mix, soup mix, or tea always available on the boat. Between the two morning dives there were wraps and Kerry’s chocolate brownies (scrumptious).
Each morning we arrived at the harbor by 7:45 a.m. and we returned from the two tank dives about 12:45 p.m. each day. The boat rides to the dive sites included whale and dolphin watching on most days. Underwater, there were several sites that we enjoyed listening to whale song throughout our dive. There were twenty-six manta rays that performed their balletic moves as they circled above us to feed on plankton during the night dive. DM, Luke Mason, could identify all twenty-six by name and told us there were nine males and seventeen females (several of these were pregnant). The largest was Big Bertha with a span of thirteen feet. Some of the new things for us to see included a gold lace, locust, and redspotted nudibranch, a juvenile gonniobranchus verrieri, a fine spined urchin with a white-stripe urchin shrimp, a striped ribbon worm, a free swimming frogfish, a conger eel, a Hawaiian pom-pom crab, a hairy yellow hermit crab, a baby lobster, a decoy scorpionfish, white and fuchsia leaf scorpionfish, lantern and a pair of golden green gobies, several Hawaiian red lionfish, a collector crab, a female Whitley’s boxfish, a redspotted perch, and thousands of surgeonfish pouring across the reef in a ribbon of fish. We also saw a Triton’s Trumpet eat an urchin. See some pictures below.
I wore a 7 mil wetsuit and my husband was comfortable in a 5 mil suit. My suit was new and the KDC staff were really helpful to me to adjust my weighting. We were very fortunate to have calm sunny days throughout the week. It really was a great week!
Harlequin Shrimp
Decoy Scorpionfish
Redspotted Nudibranch
Fuchsia Flatworm
Saddleback Butterflyfish
Hairy Yellow Hermit Crab
Undulated Moray
Hawaiian Longfin Anthia (male)
Dwarf Moray Eel
Goldrim Tang
Thousands of Surgeonfish Swam by Us
Orange Cup Corals Lining the Roof of a Lava Tube
Gold Lace Nudibranch
Leaf Scorpionfish
Hawaiian Pom-Pom Crab in DM's Hand
Hawaiian Longspine Porcupinefish
Manta Ray Night Dive (26 of them showed up for us)
Zebra Moray Eel
Frogfish
During our week on the Big Island, we dove five morning two tank dives and the afternoon/night dive at Garden Eel Cove to see the manta rays. Our Dive Master for the morning dives was owner Kerry Key, who was fabulous at finding and showing us many new creatures we had never seen before this trip. Her pace was perfect for photography. The groups were small, we never had more than four divers In our group. We were allowed to dive as long as our air would last. Our longest dive was about 75 minutes. On the manta ray dive, our Dive Master, was Luke Mason and we really enjoyed diving with him as well.
There were soft drinks, trail mix, Goldfish, hot water for hot chocolate mix, soup mix, or tea always available on the boat. Between the two morning dives there were wraps and Kerry’s chocolate brownies (scrumptious).
Each morning we arrived at the harbor by 7:45 a.m. and we returned from the two tank dives about 12:45 p.m. each day. The boat rides to the dive sites included whale and dolphin watching on most days. Underwater, there were several sites that we enjoyed listening to whale song throughout our dive. There were twenty-six manta rays that performed their balletic moves as they circled above us to feed on plankton during the night dive. DM, Luke Mason, could identify all twenty-six by name and told us there were nine males and seventeen females (several of these were pregnant). The largest was Big Bertha with a span of thirteen feet. Some of the new things for us to see included a gold lace, locust, and redspotted nudibranch, a juvenile gonniobranchus verrieri, a fine spined urchin with a white-stripe urchin shrimp, a striped ribbon worm, a free swimming frogfish, a conger eel, a Hawaiian pom-pom crab, a hairy yellow hermit crab, a baby lobster, a decoy scorpionfish, white and fuchsia leaf scorpionfish, lantern and a pair of golden green gobies, several Hawaiian red lionfish, a collector crab, a female Whitley’s boxfish, a redspotted perch, and thousands of surgeonfish pouring across the reef in a ribbon of fish. We also saw a Triton’s Trumpet eat an urchin. See some pictures below.
I wore a 7 mil wetsuit and my husband was comfortable in a 5 mil suit. My suit was new and the KDC staff were really helpful to me to adjust my weighting. We were very fortunate to have calm sunny days throughout the week. It really was a great week!
Harlequin Shrimp
Decoy Scorpionfish
Redspotted Nudibranch
Fuchsia Flatworm
Saddleback Butterflyfish
Hairy Yellow Hermit Crab
Undulated Moray
Hawaiian Longfin Anthia (male)
Dwarf Moray Eel
Goldrim Tang
Thousands of Surgeonfish Swam by Us
Orange Cup Corals Lining the Roof of a Lava Tube
Gold Lace Nudibranch
Leaf Scorpionfish
Hawaiian Pom-Pom Crab in DM's Hand
Hawaiian Longspine Porcupinefish
Manta Ray Night Dive (26 of them showed up for us)
Zebra Moray Eel
Frogfish
