5 days to dive the Big Island

[tarponchik]

If you go to Hookena, I think the best diving is shallow and right up next to the shoreline, extending quite a ways up to the right as you look out from the north end of the beach. The left is pretty featureless and sandy, but good for the dolphins when they are there. Out deeper I find somewhat meager, and prone to currents. I have seen bicolor anthias shallow and a sailfish, out where the drop-off begins, so it's a spot where you might see something unusual.

Even if you've done it before, Two-Step down at Honaunau Bay is a bit closer and pretty incomparable, and easily worth 3-4 dives, especially if it's calm enough to fully explore the shallower margins along either side of the bay. I've generally found an abundance of fish there including larger specimens, especially well out along the left side towards the point.

I love the drop-off at Hookena (which is rather a slope). There are huge mixed schools of Soldierfish, Goatfish and Bluestripe Snappers over the finger corals, and often schools of plankton feeders come in (Pyramid and Thompson's Butterflyfish), not to mention the omnipresent Black Triggerfish. This crowds of fish create an atmosphere of underwater carnival. In finger corals, I often spotted smth odd, like Hawaiian Red Lionfish or Fisher's Angelfish. At the sand's edge at 90 ft, look for Indigo Dartfish, whom I haven't seen anywhere else. And I've seen a Bandit Angelfish there at 70 ft once. Of course, one case does not make any stats but somehow I believe this was another Hookens thing to happen.

To the left, there are isolated coral heads where colonies of Anthias Bicolor often were seen as shallow as 35 ft. These fish seem to prefer isolated coral heads in the sand, so they colonize these where ever such are available. In Milolii I've seen them at 70 ft, at Hookena even at 35 ft, but at 2-Step you need to go below 120 ft to find them.

Finally, the sand in between is only of interest if dolphins are in the bay but I've spotted Flying Gurnard there once. And you are right, it's a spot where you might see something unusual:

 

[spoolin01]

Good stuff. I've never been down far along the slope to see what's there, or out beyond about 40ft depth over the sand. I forgot to mention, there are garden eels in the shallow sand there, at 30ft. The one day it was calm enough to explore the canyons up close to the shoreline to the north, I thought it was a pretty impressive tract. I startled a good-sized jack I'd never seen before, out of a hole in only about 15 ft of water. As best I could tell, I think it was a bigeye trevally. .

I've only seen indigo dartfish once, at Two-Step, at the base of a small coral head at the sand's edge, just below one of the plate coral flows. They didn't cooperate for a good pic, darting down into a hole before I could get close enough. That trip there was also a pair of longfin anthias on that head. They were there a couple of days, but gone a little later. Maybe a collector got them. Next time I get to Hookena, I'll try some other spots.

 

[tarponchik]

Canyons and pinnacles are nice to bubble away your N2 on the way back. High chances to see octopus (I once saw 4 in one dive), also there are 2 residential turtles who always hang around over there or at the very entrance.

I've seen Longfin Anthias at 2-Step only very deep, at 125 ft. Could not take a good shot of ID's either, they are called "dartfish" for a reason

 

[stuartv]

And that is all at Ho'okena? Awesome!

Thanks!

 

[tarponchik]

Best of luck, Stuart. If the dolphins are in the bay, make a choice, to snorkel with them or to dive. Or both.

 

[JamesBon92007]

Thanks, diving4ever!

But, Big Island offers a 2-tank night dive where the 1st tank is the Manta Ray night dive and the 2nd tank is the Black Water dive. Right now, that is making me leans towards going with them just so I only burn 1 night away from my family to get in both of those dives.

Anybody have any input on Big Island Divers? Or another recommendation?

I did the Manta Ray Night Dive with Big Island Divers last month and thought they were AOK. I was going to do the Black Water dive but it was cancelled due to rough conditions. I talked to Jack and he seemed to think his operation was the best in Kona but he may be somewhat biased Big Island Divers has just as many snacks on board as Jack.

I suggest bringing your own flashlight and backup light even though they supply you with a light. Mine crapped out halfway through the manta dive.

 

[stuartv]

Thanks again, all.

TC, I snorkeled with dolphins and had some pretty close up moments last year on Oahu. This time around, I think I would choose to just scuba.

JB, I brought my own lights, including a tank marker light and a blue light. All set.

I'm actually sitting in the LAX airport right now, on my layover on the way. WOOHOOOOOOO!!!!!

 

[BuckBuck]

Aloha all!
My name is Kerry - I'm the owner of Kona Diving Company and I just now joined Scubaboard so that I could perhaps shed some light on some of the topics that came up in this thread. One of our staff told me of your discussion and I'd like to clarify a few points.

First of all, yes, Kona is a wonderful dive destination and you would be hard pressed to get bad service or have a bad experience with any of the established operators here. In general there is a very high level of service here focusing on safety and customer satisfaction.

Next, especially in the winter months but on and off all throughout the year, conditions are extremely variable. While we do enjoy a huge variety of sites close to our harbor (Honokohau), there are periods of high surf that eliminate many options based on dive site exposure. Please know that safety is the utmost consideration, closely followed by diver enjoyment and comfort. We certainly do want to hit new sites every day so we can show off Kona's considerable diversity, but there are weeks when our choices are confined to specific areas to keep everyone safe and happy. BTW AZTinman, we remember this past summer - it was a doozy (thanks, El Nino!). We spent A LOT of time hiding from the persistent south swell and crazy winds. Fortunately for us, the dive sites near the harbor are protected from the south energy and they are great sites with loads of potential.

In Kona, we have great shallow reef all along the shoreline with a drop off to significant depths nearby. This kind of topography allows for profiles that keep every diver happy at pretty much every dive site. We don't really have "beginner" sites and "advanced" sites here - other than a couple of dives with square profiles that would require a blue water safety stop. Operators with smaller 6-pack boats can do one-way dives but we don't usually see enough consistent current to do true drift diving here.

Lastly, I would like to briefly address the issue surrounding bottom times and higher capacity tanks. I can't speak for the other operators, but at KDC we do have a few sets of steel 100s and 120s available. We have these tanks available for those heavy breathers out there so that no one is limited to a 30 or 40 minute dive while everyone else on the boat is still cruising around underwater for another half an hour. So if that's you, please speak up when you book your dives and we'll try our best to reserve the tanks for your use during your trip. However, if you're typically good on your air and well matched with the other divers in your group we'll set you up with an 80. In other words, we like to be able to offer the larger tanks to someone who really needs them.

Having said that, it is our goal that everyone has nice long dives. We typically have at least one guide in the water for 80+ minutes. If you are good on your air and don't get too cold, you will have plenty of time with the fishes and cool critters of Kona.

No matter who you choose to dive with, I hope you have a great time in Kona. This place has a way of casting a spell on some people so be careful...you may find yourself booking your next trip before you even end your fist one! Alooooooooha!

 

[stuartv]

Thanks, again, to everyone for the recommendations! And extra HUGE thanks for Dave (@Volksfolks) for all the hospitality!

Dave and I dived the Kona Pier and Ho'okena.

Then I went on 4 charters with Kona Diving Company. 3 mornings plus the 2 tank Manta Ray night dive. Dave went with me on the Manta Ray dive also. The folks at KDC were simply awesome! I dived with Ian, Shaggy, Hailey, and Billy and they were all fantastic! I can't say enough good things about all of them. And captains Jeff and Mike. And the very nice ladies I met at the shop as well. Everyone seemed to be the complete package. Totally professional, excellent dive skills, super nice, and always ready to do any and everything to make my trip better. Normally, I never let anyone else touch my gear, but they even won me over to the point of letting them wash my BP/W and wetsuit and hang onto them over night for me.

As for the diving itself, well, this was the highlight, for me:

A Hawaiian Monk Seal (with Hailey in the foreground). We saw it during the twilight dive before the Manta Ray night dive. It just meandered up to us from out of the blue, seemed to give us each a good look in the face, then meandered on off into the blue again. So COOL! I snapped about 5 or 6 pictures of it with my GoPro. This one is, by far, the best of the lot.

Second to this was the Manta Ray night dive itself. We had 23 mantas swarming above us for dinner. We were on the bottom for just under 50 minutes watching them. They were zooming so close over my head one of them actually whacked me on the top/side of my head. It was really an amazing show.

I'd have to say the third most cool thing that happened was on one of the morning dives, being on the bottom at about 75 feet and looking up to see a huge pod (?) of dolphins swimming by over head. It looked like around 30 or so of them.

The rest of the diving was nice, but the memories just pale in comparison to the Monk Seal, the Manta Rays, and the dolphins.

I was originally scheduled to go out with Big Island Divers for a 2-tank charter that would have been a 1 tank Manta Ray dive followed by a 1 tank Black Water dive. But, they called me the afternoon before and told me that I was the only one signed up for the BW dive, so they were going to try and round up some of their local folks to go, but if they didn't have at least 3, total, they would cancel it. They called again early on Monday afternoon and told me it was indeed canceled. I opted to cancel my whole outing with them - so, no Manta Ray dive. That's when I scheduled myself for the Manta Ray dive with KDC instead. And I am SO glad I did!

Aloha and mahalo!