cleung
Contributor
Went to Kona, big island Hawaii to do the famous manta ray dives. Stayed at a little boutique hotel (17 rooms only) right by the ocean called Kona Tiki Hotel just five minutes south of the main tourist retail area. Well recommended although their website is pretty lame and you do have to put a deposit in advance.
The dive operator we used was Kona Honu Divers and their shop is in town. Their only boat is docked at a small boats marina about five minutes north on the main number 19 highway. Once you check in the first time at the shop, you just meet at the boat for all of the dives.
We started with two morning dives with a manta ray dive in the evening. The next day, we did another two morning dives and then returned for a twilight (late afternoon) dive at the same site of the manta ray dive followed by our second manta dive.
First of all, the boat was pretty standard dive one well equipped. The crew had lots of snacks and even freshly cut pineapple during the morning dives. Weird thing observed was although they have only one boat, each of the four trips we went out on featured a completely different captain and almost a complete changeover of divemasters. Don't know if there was some job sharing thing going on or not with the crew but September was after their busy high summer season. The main tourist drag in Kona was not busy at all both daytime and evenings.
Some interesting differences I found with Kona Honu Divers - first, they set everyone up with proper weights and instead of using weight belts, they all use bean bag type of weights which they put in BC pockets.
One thing I really liked about Kona Honu Divers was their valet style of entering the ocean. Instead of everyone putting on their BCs and fins, then walking to the back of the boat, they have two metal seats at the back. They have each diver without fins or BC sit on one of these seats. Then a crew member will carry the BC/tank over and help put on the gear. Each diver also puts on their fins at the back too. Then it's a giant stride into the ocean.
This resulted in waiting a bit for everyone else to get into the water but perhaps it's a safer way without anyone wiping out on the boat deck. The return to the boat was otherwise the same as with other dive boats.
For the reef dives, I must say that overall, I was not that impressed with the dive sites. I think the divemasters did their best in finding interesting marine life but from my observation, the reefs here are not as colourful and the marine life is not as abundant compared to many of the better Caribbean dive sites. There are some fish we saw that were indigenous to Hawaiian waters though.
Some of the divemasters were quite good while I found the odd one a bit too fast, especially since most of the waters there had a mild current. Near the end of the dives, they would send the divers low on air towards the boat to hang out until it was time to do safety stops. The rest of the groups would go a little longer. Sometimes this worked while sometimes I can see that divers low on air still could not see where the dive boat was so they had to find it on their own.
Now for the manta ray dives. These were night dives and most operators will end up taking both scuba divers and snorkellers. The snorkellers will stay on the surface holding a special lighting rig throughout the manta encounter.
The divers all get a dive light attached to their BCs. We follow the divemasters to an area called the Ball Park which is a relatively open area on the bottom about 45 feet down. Here, we either kneel or sit. We are then instructed to hold our lights up towards the surface.
The lights attract plankton which in turn attract the manta rays. During the first night, there were 8 manta rays while the second night, they counted 17. What really surprised me was just how close these mantas come to the divers.
They would typically come towards our heads because that's where the lights are. Then they would literally be a few inches away from the tops of our heads. Each manta then typically would do this jet fighter plane barrel roll and go upside down before coming at us for a second or third time.
This type of behaviour went on for 45 minutes so whether there were 8 mantas or 17, the show really looked the same. We were briefed before hand on a few regular known manta rays including Big Bertha who is the largest female with a wingspan of 17 feet and estimated weight of 1700 pounds. There was also Tim who has a paralysed left fang. We saw both of them during both nights.
The divemasters will come around and check your air about halfway through the dive and at the 45 minute mark, will request everyone head back to the boat. I found it quite amazing how they found the boat because there were about 12 boats on site and none had any lights below their boats like I saw at other destinations. They said that during the busy summer season, there could be as many as 25 boats.
Overall, I found Kona to be just a barely average destination for reef dives. Hawaii was a long way to go for dive sites I could easily find in the Caribbean and even in the Florida Keys. But the manta ray dives were definitely world class and a top big animals encounter that nobody will ever forget.
For divers into big animals, you might see manta rays elsewhere but at Kona, they will come within inches of your face. So far, I think this is the only place in the world where they will come that close to you and for 45 minutes non-stop.
Kona Honu Divers did a good job overall with their dives, including the manta ray dives. They also have a special night dive called black water which is out in the open ocean at night and the attractions are the marine creatures from the deep that come up at night. They have this dive only once per week and it would have been interesting to do this one.
Big island Hawaii has other interesting land attractions including breathtaking coastlines, volcanoes and lava flows as well as two mountains to climb. We circumvented the entire island for the next three days of our stay. In our opinion, the manta rays were the highlight of our trip. Everything else was good but nowhere near the level of the mantas.
Personally, I am not in a hurry to return to big island Hawaii because of the quality of the reefs but I may someday just to do the manta rays again as well as the black water dive and then head out to try some of the other islands.
The dive operator we used was Kona Honu Divers and their shop is in town. Their only boat is docked at a small boats marina about five minutes north on the main number 19 highway. Once you check in the first time at the shop, you just meet at the boat for all of the dives.
We started with two morning dives with a manta ray dive in the evening. The next day, we did another two morning dives and then returned for a twilight (late afternoon) dive at the same site of the manta ray dive followed by our second manta dive.
First of all, the boat was pretty standard dive one well equipped. The crew had lots of snacks and even freshly cut pineapple during the morning dives. Weird thing observed was although they have only one boat, each of the four trips we went out on featured a completely different captain and almost a complete changeover of divemasters. Don't know if there was some job sharing thing going on or not with the crew but September was after their busy high summer season. The main tourist drag in Kona was not busy at all both daytime and evenings.
Some interesting differences I found with Kona Honu Divers - first, they set everyone up with proper weights and instead of using weight belts, they all use bean bag type of weights which they put in BC pockets.
One thing I really liked about Kona Honu Divers was their valet style of entering the ocean. Instead of everyone putting on their BCs and fins, then walking to the back of the boat, they have two metal seats at the back. They have each diver without fins or BC sit on one of these seats. Then a crew member will carry the BC/tank over and help put on the gear. Each diver also puts on their fins at the back too. Then it's a giant stride into the ocean.
This resulted in waiting a bit for everyone else to get into the water but perhaps it's a safer way without anyone wiping out on the boat deck. The return to the boat was otherwise the same as with other dive boats.
For the reef dives, I must say that overall, I was not that impressed with the dive sites. I think the divemasters did their best in finding interesting marine life but from my observation, the reefs here are not as colourful and the marine life is not as abundant compared to many of the better Caribbean dive sites. There are some fish we saw that were indigenous to Hawaiian waters though.
Some of the divemasters were quite good while I found the odd one a bit too fast, especially since most of the waters there had a mild current. Near the end of the dives, they would send the divers low on air towards the boat to hang out until it was time to do safety stops. The rest of the groups would go a little longer. Sometimes this worked while sometimes I can see that divers low on air still could not see where the dive boat was so they had to find it on their own.
Now for the manta ray dives. These were night dives and most operators will end up taking both scuba divers and snorkellers. The snorkellers will stay on the surface holding a special lighting rig throughout the manta encounter.
The divers all get a dive light attached to their BCs. We follow the divemasters to an area called the Ball Park which is a relatively open area on the bottom about 45 feet down. Here, we either kneel or sit. We are then instructed to hold our lights up towards the surface.
The lights attract plankton which in turn attract the manta rays. During the first night, there were 8 manta rays while the second night, they counted 17. What really surprised me was just how close these mantas come to the divers.
They would typically come towards our heads because that's where the lights are. Then they would literally be a few inches away from the tops of our heads. Each manta then typically would do this jet fighter plane barrel roll and go upside down before coming at us for a second or third time.
This type of behaviour went on for 45 minutes so whether there were 8 mantas or 17, the show really looked the same. We were briefed before hand on a few regular known manta rays including Big Bertha who is the largest female with a wingspan of 17 feet and estimated weight of 1700 pounds. There was also Tim who has a paralysed left fang. We saw both of them during both nights.
The divemasters will come around and check your air about halfway through the dive and at the 45 minute mark, will request everyone head back to the boat. I found it quite amazing how they found the boat because there were about 12 boats on site and none had any lights below their boats like I saw at other destinations. They said that during the busy summer season, there could be as many as 25 boats.
Overall, I found Kona to be just a barely average destination for reef dives. Hawaii was a long way to go for dive sites I could easily find in the Caribbean and even in the Florida Keys. But the manta ray dives were definitely world class and a top big animals encounter that nobody will ever forget.
For divers into big animals, you might see manta rays elsewhere but at Kona, they will come within inches of your face. So far, I think this is the only place in the world where they will come that close to you and for 45 minutes non-stop.
Kona Honu Divers did a good job overall with their dives, including the manta ray dives. They also have a special night dive called black water which is out in the open ocean at night and the attractions are the marine creatures from the deep that come up at night. They have this dive only once per week and it would have been interesting to do this one.
Big island Hawaii has other interesting land attractions including breathtaking coastlines, volcanoes and lava flows as well as two mountains to climb. We circumvented the entire island for the next three days of our stay. In our opinion, the manta rays were the highlight of our trip. Everything else was good but nowhere near the level of the mantas.
Personally, I am not in a hurry to return to big island Hawaii because of the quality of the reefs but I may someday just to do the manta rays again as well as the black water dive and then head out to try some of the other islands.
