While the reef in Hawaii lacks the colorful soft corals of other Pacific locales, the diving is good. Early in the trip we went to Kona on the Big Island, and enjoyed 2 of the ‘signature’ dives. Pelagic magic is a night dive approximately 4-5 miles offshore, in 3,000’ of water. The boat drifts with a drift anchor, six weighted lines 45’ long with another 5’ line attached to bcd, sliding on the down line. Torches are provided so you can see the plankton, shrimp, and other critters as they rise from the depths. Imagine a 2” wide clear ribbon 18” long in 2 segments swimming through the water column, clear shrimp the length equal to the width of your little fingernail, and tiny bell shaped jellies, while hearing the clicking of dolphins, and the deep songs of whales accompanying the primordial soup passing in front of your eyes. Photo/video is difficult [especially when you leave your camera in the car] since the plankton is so small and is only a foot in front of your eyes. Erica wasn’t able to get any pictures, even with a camera!! Here’s a video from Jack’s Dive Locker. The next night, we went on a night manta dive in a small bay just off the Kona airport. The site was packed with six boats, 2 dive boats, the remainder individual boats with up to 6 people aboard, equally divided between divers and snorkelers, probably 50 total. A milk crate with several led lights is placed in the center of the site, while the snorkelers use paddle boards with 2 – 3’ strips of led-s on the bottom as support. Each diver is provided with another torch, which attracts plankton, and to watch the mantas as they summersault overhead feeding.
We returned to Maui after having some good dives, but Erica had caught a cold which had been passed around from her partner’s son, which resulted in the end to her diving for the rest of my stay. I was able to go on a hammer head dive to Molokai, seeing 5-8 individuals and a group of 5 at Mokuho’oniki Rock [off the eastern tip of Molokai]. The winds were 20-25 mph with 9-10’ swells, which made for challenging live boat drift diving, not to mention an interesting trip from and to Lahaina. Later in the week more sharks were sighted, although the season for hammer heads is July – August.
There were other dives I wanted to do; Molokini back wall & Carthegenian, but I’ll save those for my next trip. Instead I spent several days touring Maui, driving and seeing the waterfalls on the road to Hana. The road to Hana is a full day long trip, to see the waterfalls and other side trips along the way [probably best saved for your ‘no fly’ interval]. I went to the whaling museum in Ka’anapali, which can be done in an afternoon. I also spent a weekend on Molokai, although I didn’t dive, there is a fringing reef running the length of the south coast of the island. There’s a dive operator on the island, as most of the Maui operators limit their dives to the hammer head dive. Molokai is the most laid back of the islands, I’ve visited, so far. The mongoose are slow to cross the roads, but on Molokai, they stop to mate in the middle of the road. As I left Maui for Honolulu, I noticed the red dirt runoff along the south shore of Molokai extending almost half way out to the edge of the reef. I’ll return to dive it on a future trip. There’s a ferry which runs twice daily from Lahaina to Molokai.
Maui, as with the rest of Hawaii, can be expensive, I found gasoline $1/gal more than stateside. I met a couple from S. Africa, they were staying at the Ka’anapali Inn [part of the Royal Lahaina Hotel complex] for $100/nt, the cheapest I’ve heard of. Maui is geared for the tourist, while they have dive operators, there are no ‘dive resorts’, just RESORTS. There are condos and houses for short term rental, most of which start at $200/nt and going as high as your bank account will allow. If you’re interested in going to Maui, I suggest you get Maui Revealed, a comprehensive guide to the island, the sites to see, and reviews the restaurants.
Edited by ScubaTex, 05 April 2014 - 08:01 PM.
