Newbie... Monterey or Honolulu?

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edstorm

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30
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Location
Atlanta
# of dives
200 - 499
I am presently working in San fran and was thinking of setting up a dive in the monterey area. I also have the option of going to Hawaii for a dive instead. Is the dives in monterey great? I am not cold water certified and I have 60+ dives under my belt now. ANy thoughts on this would be great. I haven't dived in either of these places.

How's the diving in september anyways?
 
My diving has pretty much been exclusively Monterey and Honolulu.

I don't know of any "cold water certification" but it's definitely much more challenging here than in Hawaii. You've got 60+ dives, but it's hard to give targeted advice without knowing where and what kind of dives these are, and what you general experience is.

In Hawaii, you'll typically be diving an aluminum tank with a shorty or 3mm wetsuit. The water is 75-80 degrees with little thermocline, and a bad vis day is 30ft, with 60-100ft viz not atypical. The reefs off Waikiki aren't typically chock-full of life, but there are some interesting and easy wrecks just a few minutes from harbor, and you're very likely to get up close and personal with some big, friendly green sea turtles.

In Monterey, you'll need the thickets wetsuit you can find, typically a 7mm+ or farmer john style, or a drysuit. Even then you'll probably end your dives being cold. 30ft viz is a good day, and it can go south pretty easily (days with 5-10ft viz aren't all that uncommon). Water temperature is usually 48-53 degrees year-round. Most people typically dive steel tanks to help offset the buoyancy of the thicker, bulkier wetsuits. It's *not easy* to move around with all the extra insulation and gear you'll need, and you definitely want to buddy with someone familiar with the area/site. It's very true to say that if you can dive NorCal, Hawaii will be an absolute cakewalk. The best thing about Monterey is the incredible abundance of sea-life. A ten-minute surface swim from short gets you 30-60ft of depth with reefs full of fish, inverts, and kelp rising to the surface like underwater cathedral columns. We occasionally have juvenile seals follow us and play with us, bumping and trying to steal our fins. IMO it's really hard to beat, but it really depends on what you're into and what you want to see (and what you're willing to put up with).

September is great in Monterey. It's effectively summer, the kelp forests are still around, and it's probably a tad cooler than August. Same with Honolulu diving - you'll be dealing with marginally stronger swells on the leeward side than in the winter months, but the water will be be 5-10 degrees warmer than it'll be in 3-5 months.
 
WOW.. once again I beat Dandy Don in greeting a new member to SB. Maybe he is off diving somewhere. Hope you enjoy your time here on SB.
 
This is good information!

I actually have only dived exclusively in the tropics(florida, carribean, southeast asia)so i would have no idea how the cold diving experience would be in monterrey. I am surprised though that you mention there is a lot of sea-life in the monterrey area. That is very exciting!

I am also surprised that hawaii does not have a lot of sea-life in comparison. Would I need to go to another part of hawaii to see more? any advice would be great on that as well. I love wreck dives so I think I will be fine but if I can make a day trip from honolulu, I am up for it!

Thanks again!
 
Welcome to ScubaBoard.

You should ask your Hawaii questions here Hawai'i O'Hana

Good folks over there.
 
Definitely ask on the Hawaii forums - the guys there are friendly and very helpful (and like us, also very opinionated). The easy wrecks on Oahu are definitely closeby, more like a half-day than a day trip. The Corsair, Sea Tiger, YO-257, San Pedro, Baby Barge are all about 5-45 minutes out from Harbor, and a typical 2-tank dive will start at 8AM and end at 1PM.

It's not that there isn't a lot of sealife in Hawaii, it's just that it's not the Philippines and definitely not California. We have a lot of cold-water upwelling here which brings up tons of oxygen and nutrient-rich water from depth, which supports a wide variety of life. Hawaii for me is more like "blue water all the way down to the bottom" and then you'll find your typical octopi, shrimp, tube worms, eels and rays skirting around. In Monterey, there's usually quite a bit throughout the water column, especially in the kelp.
 
The excitement of the sea life in Hawaii is that many of the species are endemic, or unique to the islands. At least on Maui, which is the only island where I've dived, fish are generally not found in enormous numbers, but scattered over the reef. The reefs are fairly monochromatic, and you don't find a lot of soft corals or sponges. The visibility is usually quite good and currents, at least at Maui dive sites, are mild to minimal. You can get blown out by surf conditions if the winds are wrong.

Monterey diving surprised me greatly with the amount of COLOR that was there. The hydrocoral comes in many pastel shades, and there are encrusting sponges as well as algae of various colors. There is a LOT of life in the cold water, and some of it is extremely beautiful -- Blue rockfish that glow indigo were among my favorites, and they were common.

Cold water diving is more work and more fatiguing. You wear more exposure protection and a lot more weight. Hoods and heavy gloves are facts of life. But the rewards are really worth it.
 
Any recommendations on a good dive shop with reasonable prices?
 

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