Goin' to Hawaii!

[mudchick]

If this question belongs in another forum, I apologize and ask that you direct me to the right place....

My husband and I will be celebrating our 20th anniversary in '09 and we're (finally) going to Hawaii. We'll be on Oahu and Hawaii. What's the best time of year to go based on ocean conditions ( water temp,rough seas, currents, etc.), opportunities to see animals (I'm especially fond of sharks!) and what ever other factors you know of that I don't. Our dive experience: me 118 dives in varying conditions; hubby has 50 dives in mostly warm water conditions.

Thanks to all in advance.

 

[ScubaSarus]

Ide guess mid summer Jun-Aug. Winter and Fall are when the surfers hit the beaches.

 

[WVDiver]

Hey Mudshark. I have about the same story, but for us it is 10 years and we are doing Maui and Hawaii. We have set a block of time ranging between 17 Oct through 8 Nov.

We will spend a week on both islands. So I am anxious to here about this myself.

 

[ketchumid]

Hey Mudshark. I have about the same story, but for us it is 10 years and we are doing Maui and Hawaii. We have set a block of time ranging between 17 Oct through 8 Nov.

We will spend a week on both islands. So I am anxious to here about this myself.

If you are heading to Maui- make sure you check out Maui Dreams Dive Co do one of there DPV dives- it is a blast and easy- this is a photo from my fist dive with them-

 

[StacyT]

WVDiver I've done a few trips to Maui. Usually oct-nov the viz is not as good. I have gone in August before and the viz was great, but topside it was very warm and humid. This next year I am going to try for spring and see how the conditions are. Our anniversary is late Nov so we have always tried going as close to that as we could. I have always done shore diving and have been told that the viz at Molokini is better than the shore diving durring that time.

 

[ketchumid]

I mostly go in Nov- it has always been decent- but again, coming from Idaho anything warm in Nov is decent- Shore diving in the Am is best- you can also go on a lot of boats out to the volcano or over to Lani- all good options, stay away from the big shops, the experience is better with the smaller operators in my opinion.

 

[diversteve]

On Oahu, there's several cage dive operations out of Haliewa (sp) which is on the North Shore - about an hour drive from Honolulu.

The best (imo) dive on Hawaii has to be the night Manta dive. Somebody does a blackwater dive also that sounded interesting - float in the deep ocean till you can see after turning off all the lights.

Sharks around Maui are almost a given. Shark Condos on the Molokini backside is a somewhat likely place. Although I think I've seen whitetips on just about every dive that I was looking for them except around the Lanai Cathedrals. Want to dive with Tiger Sharks? - dive the Maui Ocean Center tank. We've always been to Maui in the late spring/early summer and I've never had a dive called due to weather. I agree with the viz comment above, once off Molokini, we couldn't see the end of it. Had to be 200' horizontal easy.

Don't miss the Volcanoes Natl' Park on Hawaii.

Post moved to the Ohana...

 

[onfloat]

Diving here is year round, we just move to different sides of the Island depending on conditions. The North Shore is pretty much out durning the winter months, but great during the summer. Electric Beach is always a good fall back if nothing else is good. Point Panic make a good winter dive and lots of creatures during the winter months. Then there is always the boat dives, most of the shops don't own their own boats, but sell seats on the boats that do the dives.

 

[KrisB]

onfloat is correct with regards to Maui, as well.

The winter months bring stronger, more often north swells... but most of Maui's diving is on the south side, so as long as they're not REALLY big (and wrap around the island), so the viz usually stays good.

In the summer months, when there's a big storm in the Southern Hemisphere (i.e. near NZ or Oz), we'll get a south swell... which will knock out most of the diving (except inside the crater at Molokini) for at least a few days but up to a couple weeks.

As for critters, the big one is the humpback whales that start to get plentiful around late Nov, early Dec, then peter out around the end of Feb, with a few stragglers still in April.

No matter how you slice it, we're one of a handful of rocks in a huge ocean -- the weather conditions can be very extreme, but it can usually be seen coming a few days in advance.

 

[friscuba]

I'd say the best conditions for diving, at least on the Big Island, are from August through late October. Even at that, our conditions are pretty darned decent year round, with the occasional winter swell coming in and disrupting things.

The Big Island is younger so there's not tons of apex predators on a regular basis (although we saw a whitetip today and one of the other operators saw a group of 5 hammerheads (that has us hoping it's a good hammerhead year, some years we see them, some years we don't). Kona does have the manta ray dive, which is generally considered to be an amazing dive.