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+1 recommendation for Corrine @Big Island Divers. She has been doing the long range charters this year, and a few local boats. She's an expert at finding and identifying small critters, nudies, etc.

This year there has been a lot of bouncing between south and north sites. Last week there were quite a few days they went south. Any given day it could be either. Best to call the major dive ops and see where they are currently going, knowing that it can change on a daily basis.

I wouldn't do that. Good for you for resisting being talked into doing something unsafe. Maybe you'd be ok, maybe not, but why take an unnecessary risk?

And here is why 1. it's good to wear booties 2. it's good to watch the ocean for 20 minutes before going in

+1 on booties. Shorediving the big island involves walking out over the reef in many places, urchins, not good. Stormsurf.com has a swell model that is very good for anticipating swell height and direction. I do recommend doing a charter, especially the long range ones that go to red hill...

Worth the extra $? Yes. You will go south to red hill area or further, or north to Kua Bay and other sites north of the airport. The entire area south from keauhou to paradise pinnacle is unique topography, with many fun lava tubes and big structure. This is the usual destination, but north of...

I haven't heard anything but good about any of the local ops. But my current favorite for guided kona diving is Big Island Divers. Nice boats, great DMs, excellent instructors, small groups and they let you dive your tank up to 70 minutes.

In case it takes a while for Oahu peeps to chime in here. I'm in Kona, which may be close to the same temps as oahu south/west shore. It's been running steadily 79 degrees at depth here for the past few weeks. But consistently its felt colder even on first dives. I've been wearing a 5mil on...

Ok, this happened to me too, and I'd made sure to wait for the complete upload, and then I looked over my dives before disconnecting the computer from my workstation. Stuck in Data Transfer mode. Having read this I didn't wait half an hour but I did wait long enough to realize it was stuck...

Back to Kona after a few years and the difference in the health of the reefs is stunning. Ho'onaunau's famous cascading plate coral is about 75% bleached. Wow. Across the boat channel I found some plate coral that wasn't so bad, but still under stress. OK, while that was depressing, I enjoyed...

As I posted elsewhere here, two weeks ago Koloa Landing was definitely not cleared up. At the float mooring vis was about 10 ft and murky, which is still very close in. Once outside in about 30fsw vis cleared up to about 50' but not crystal clear, and the rocks and reef were covered with a...

I don't know if the diminished clarity on the south side of Kaua'i is a residual of the huge storms they had over the spring or the strong winds recently. I was there two weeks ago and vis on the south side was 30-60 ft, which, while not great by Hawaii standards, is still pretty good. One...

I've had the privilege of diving with Brooke, and I can't imagine anyone more committed to preserving and protecting Kohala marine life and habitats. Of course she would record such careless and preventable reef damage. It's sad that apparently in the course of taking pictures of the damage...

Is there feasible public access to Kahuwai Bay for shore diving? I've dove that reef from the Kona Village beach and would love to get back out there, check out the cleaning station, and snoop around the overhangs as the reef drops off. It's a truly beautiful area unlike most of the other...

I still have teeth marks on my drysuit arm from a sealion bite off the rookery at Santa Barbara Island. Things happen in the water.

From San Mateo the closest option for diving is Monterey. There is a mid-week dive sticky at the top of the topic list, but on such short notice I'd also think of swinging by Wallins dive shop in San Carlos, (close to San mateo) and see if they know of mid-week diver possibilities, or could...

Yeah, that day we were on Sanctuary just leaving when you guys arrived. We ended up over at Eric's and had fun playing whack-a-jelly there too.

IF you add a 7/3 hooded vest to ktkt's outfit it becomes my wetsuit solution, which worked for me for two years in NCoast/Monterey waters. It still does work great for southern channel islands diving, but I have retired it for northern california diving in favor of a drysuit after a particular...

From Northern California there are a few charter boat companies that go to the southern islands, San Clemente, Catalina every year. They are so cheap for what you get that it's almost more expensive staying home. Truth aquatics and Peace in Santa Barbara/Ventura are two popular ones. You...