Best Route to Kona to see Mantas

[JMC99]

So much great information, thank you. January and February are out then, I'm thinking maybe next fall as our "travel dance card" is full until then.
Looks like a lot of people go in summer, is that high season there? I'll get the book ans start reading up so I can make the most of it. Friscuba, I'll give you a shout when we have the time frame nailed down.
Thank you all again so much.

I think summer is best. I shore dive a lot and the entries are a lot calmer. Also, the water is warmer--you can get away with a rashguard most days. I haven't noticed much of seasonal pricing except for airfare. Typically goes up when kids are out of school--summer, breaks, etc., but it's getting more competitive if you book early. It doesn't really get unbearably hot, either. We stay in a non air-conditioned condo and it's fine--leave the windows open, turn the fans on, and drink plenty of Kona Fire Rock Pale Ale.

Jan-Mar is a great time to go because of the whales. You can't swing a dead cat in Kona in Feb without hitting a whale. I was there this winter doing the manta dive and we could hear them singing underwater. You can watch them breaching from shore. Only downside to winter is some shore entries will beat you up and you'll need at least a 3 mil fullsuit. And a bunch of people from Chicago will be there trying to thaw out while mispronouncing all the Hawaiian names, but you can ignore them.

 

[lawofgravity]

Susan,
I'm in the process of planning out a trip this October to Kona with my wife on our second anniversary. We're flying into Honolulu first since I have to be there for business and using one of the many inter island airlines to fly into Kona. You can find flights from HNL to KOA for as little as $39 one way. There are several flights a day so you have a lot of flexibility. Check out Hawaiian Airlines or Mesa Airlines. I second the recommendation in getting "Big Island Revealed" or any of Doughty's books on Hawaii. Lot's of good local information and a good sense of humour to boot. I haven't settled on a dive op yet, but have narrowed it down to Jack's, Big Island or Torpedo. I think Torpedo rents gear for only $20/day so we might go with them and leave most of our stuff home.

 

[gkndivebum]

If you really want to do this dive cheap, get yourselves a couple of tanks and you can shore dive it by the Sheraton Keahou. They shine lights onto the water there so the Mantas go right up to the rocky edge.

Go scope out the site during the day first so you can pick an exit and entry point.

I should point out that as a shore dive this isn't the easiest entry/exit, and the
dive at this particular site isn't all that great in the best of conditions. In
general, if the mantas don't show up this particular dive is about a -3.0 on
the -4.0 - +4.0 scale I've had my backside kicked severely there several
times at night.... what I was doing there is another long story :14:

The other site is up at Garden Eels Cove (Hoona Bay, near the Kona Airport).
At least there's a pretty reef there... but it's by boat only.

 

[MeiLing]

I should point out that as a shore dive this isn't the easiest entry/exit, and the
dive at this particular site isn't all that great in the best of conditions. In
general, if the mantas don't show up this particular dive is about a -3.0 on
the -4.0 - +4.0 scale I've had my backside kicked severely there several
times at night.... what I was doing there is another long story :14:

The other site is up at Garden Eels Cove (Hoona Bay, near the Kona Airport).
At least there's a pretty reef there... but it's by boat only.

When I did it, that was were all the dive boat operators were taking the folks who paid to go. I did it several nights in a row and it was flush with mantas every time. Our gang did it quite frequently and always saw a lot of Mantas. Of course, back then the hotel shined big floodlights on the waters there, all night, every night.

I didn't find the exit or entry any more difficult than most of the ones we do all the time on Oahu, such as firehouse or sharks cove.

I'm sure the conditions there aren't great all year, but that's pretty much par for course for most of Hawaii's shorediving. From how often people from our shop would go there, shore dive it and have killer dives with lots of Mantas, it was pretty consistent.

As far as whether or night the site was a great dive site for other wildlife, I don't think anyone who's there to see the Mantas would really care. I sure as heck didn't. I only had eyes for the numerous mantas that gravitated towards our lights and danced over our heads.

If I had paid the money for a dive boat to see mantas and didn't see any, I think my rating for dive would be much more critical than being out the cost of a tank rental.

Quite frankly, I would have been totally ticked off if I had been a customer on one of the three or four dive boats that were there the nights we did and watched folks just doing it as a shore dive!

 

[friscuba]

When I did it, that was were all the dive boat operators were taking the folks who paid to go. I did it several nights in a row and it was flush with mantas every time. Our gang did it quite frequently and always saw a lot of Mantas. Of course, back then the hotel shined big floodlights on the waters there, all night, every night.

I didn't find the exit or entry any more difficult than most of the ones we do all the time on Oahu, such as firehouse or sharks cove.

I'm sure the conditions there aren't great all year, but that's pretty much par for course for most of Hawaii's shorediving. From how often people from our shop would go there, shore dive it and have killer dives with lots of Mantas, it was pretty consistent.

As far as whether or night the site was a great dive site for other wildlife, I don't think anyone who's there to see the Mantas would really care. I sure as heck didn't. I only had eyes for the numerous mantas that gravitated towards our lights and danced over our heads.

If I had paid the money for a dive boat to see mantas and didn't see any, I think my rating for dive would be much more critical than being out the cost of a tank rental.

Quite frankly, I would have been totally ticked off if I had been a customer on one of the three or four dive boats that were there the nights we did and watched folks just doing it as a shore dive!

Let's give some history to this whole thing... Back in the day, pre-June18th (might be 20th - I'd have to call one of my video friends who moved stateside), 1999, the manta dive was held off what is now the Sheraton. They weren't sighted for 3+ months after that date and were found off the Kona airport. That site had more mantas in short order than the old Kona Surf (now Sheraton) ever did.

Over the course of that winter, dive operators switched back in forth between the site off the airport and the Kona Surf, when it would slow down at one, everyone went to the other. Then the Kona Surf closed and the lights went off. I was there on the last night the lights were on and we had 3. A couple days later there was one, and some guy grabbed it. I know someone who videod it and tackled the guy. No mantas there again for a long while after that.

In the meanwhile the Garden Eel Cove site got hot... lots of mantas, sometimes in the teens... time passes... I worked with a guy in late '01 who'd worked with the one operator in the area off the Kona Surf who did the "Manta Dive" several times a week before joining the operator I worked for... he said they hadn't seen a manta in 6 months or so... most all the while it'd been hopping at the north site.

Long time passes... A couple of Octobers ago the Sheraton opens at the Kona Surf location and turns the light off... still no mantas. In March or so they show up, and show up constistantly - one to three mantas. I think they still see that many much of the time today and there are 3 or 4 operators who will go down there when it's slow up north.

Last night there were 17 mantas at the airport site, It's been 10+ for a while now, not sure if there were any down south last night or not.

Gerard is absolutely correct in that the site is not for everyone. If it's calm, there's decent entrys, rough days (which aren't uncommon since it's near a point and exposed to both south and north swells) can be tougher and will require a fairly long swim from the harbor. I've seen people get clobbered there trying to get off the rocks below what was once the Kona Surf's saltwater pool. Best to know what you are doing ahead of time. The site, as a good dive, is marginal unless you head towards the boat channel. It has improved over the last 7 years now that most everyone goes to the more reliable north site and 6-8 anchors aren't dropped every night like in the past - more little coral encrustation on the boulders than in the old days.

There's a reason you see upwards of 6-12 operators nightly right now off the airport, 4 miles from the nearest harbor, and rarely see more than one off the Sheraton, even though it's only a 300 yard drive from the boat ramp.

 

[MeiLing]

Let's give some history to this whole thing... Back in the day, pre-June18th might be 20th - I'd have to call one of my video friends who moved stateside), 1999, the manta dive was held off what is now the Sheraton. They weren't sighted for 3+ months after that date and were found off the Kona airport. That site had more mantas in short order than the old Kona Surf (now Sheraton) ever did.

Over the course of that winter, dive operators switched back in forth between the site off the airport and the Kona Surf, when it would slow down at one, everyone went to the other. Then the Kona Surf closed and the lights went off. I was there on the last night the lights were on and we had 3. A couple days later there was one, and some guy grabbed it. I know someone who videod it and tackled the guy. No mantas there again for a long while after that.

In the meanwhile the Garden Eel Cove site got hot... lots of mantas, sometimes in the teens... time passes... I worked with a guy in late '01 who'd worked with the one operator in the area who did the "Manta Dive" several times a week before joining the operator I worked for... he said they hadn't seen a manta in 6 months or so... most all the while it'd been hopping at the north site.

Long time passes... A couple of Octobers ago the Sheraton opens at the Kona Surf location and turns the light off... still no mantas. In March or so they show up, and show up constistantly - one to three mantas. I think they still see that many much of the time today and there are 3 or 4 operators who will go down there when it's slow up north.

Last night there were 17 mantas at the airport site, It's been 10+ for a while now, not sure if there were any down south last night or not.

Gerard is absolutely correct in that the site is not for everyone. If it's calm, there's decent entrys, rough days (which aren't uncommon since it's near a point and exposed to both south and north swells) can be tougher and will require a fairly long swim from the harbor. I've seen people get clobbered there trying to get off the rocks below what was once the Kona Surf's saltwater pool. Best to know what you are doing ahead of time. The site, as a good dive, is marginal unless you head towards the boat channel. It has improved over the last 7 years now that most everyone goes to the more reliable north site and 6-8 anchors aren't dropped every night like in the past - more little coral encrustation on the boulders than in the old days.

There's a reason you see upwards of 6-12 operators nightly right now off the airport, 4 miles from the nearest harbor, and rarely see more than one off the Sheraton, even though it's only a 300 yard drive from the boat ramp.

As I said in my original post:

If you really want to do this dive cheap, get yourselves a couple of tanks and you can shore dive it by the Sheraton Keahou. They shine lights onto the water there so the Mantas go right up to the rocky edge.

Go scope out the site during the day first so you can pick an exit and entry point.

1 to 3 mantas divided by the cost of a tank rental sounds a lot more economical, especially as it seems that it is everyone's fallback site, than 20 per the cost of a boat. Like I said if you want to do it cheap!

And it isn't 300 yards. I don't think we swam out more than 30 yards! Again, I did say also to scope out the site during the day time.

And 6 - 12 boats over top of pretty much one area, is not something I'd be wanting to do, even if it was a pretty wide area!

I also didn't say either that it was for everyone, nothing ever is!

 

[Damselfish]

last Sunday we saw tons of mantas at Garden Eel Cove (airport) - someone IDed at least 18 but I think there were more.

 

[wilton]

I just got back from Kona for my first trip -- I haven't read all the other lengthy posts, but I skimmed them and it sounds like there's some great information.

Here's what I can add -- I'm not a local -- so take it with a grain of salt, but here are the facts as I understand it.

The nightly Manta boat dive seems to be an event that all dive shops participate in. The locals have built a "Manta ring" which is a circle of rocks at a certain spot which is called Eel Cove during the day but "Manta Heaven" once night falls. There are four boat moorings around the ring, and all the dive operators show up at pretty much the exact same time.

There's reason to this madness -- and that's because the more lights there are, the more plankton there is, and the more plankton there is, the more manta's there are.

So they stuff the Manta ring with as many lights as they can, pointing up. This is the "campfire." All the divers, from all the boats, sit around the campfire with more lights pointing up. All the snorkelers from all the boats float above the campfire with their lights pointing down. This creates a column of plankton that is irresistable to the Manta's.

I initially questioned the idea of having so many divers in such as small spot, but as it was explained to me, the more light, the more Manta's. I was a little concerned about getting kicked in the face, but the fact is, everybody just kneels on the bottom and looks in wonder. Swimming in the water column is discouraged lest you get clobbered by a ray.

So, based on these facts, if you absolutely want to see manta's, I would recommend booking a boat dive. There's no guarantee, of course, but if you've got every dive operation on the island colluding to make sure their divers see mantas, it's hard to justify going solo on a beach dive.

My crew and I did two night dives (two weeks ago), and we saw 15-17 mantas each night. It was breathtaking.

We stayed in Kona at a timeshare next to the Hilton/Sheraton (?) and there was a golf course outside our window. I can't speak to the quality of it, since I'm not a golfer, but there's definitely a golf course in Kona.

That's my free advice. It's worth what you paid for it.
Wilton

 

[jon m]

my experience was the same as Wiltons'
like being in outer space when you see all those mantas backflipping like so many UFO's....

 

[susan6868]

Thank you, thank you- I can hardly wait to go! It sounds almost surreal.