Current water temperature (Big Island Hawaii)

[TinFins]

I'm heading to the big island Hawaii in two weeks. What is the current temp at surface and at depth? Is there a significant thermocline, and if so at what depth on average?

I'm trying to decide what wetsuit or dry suit or wetsuit jacket to bring. We will be doing repetitive shore dives, I'm a polar bear who dives a single 7mm comfortably in Tahoe in January, my wife almost gets cold in Bonaire in a 4mil.

My wife has a neoprene dry suit, but hates all the weight she needs to dive it, so she might just dive cold in her 4mil. I'm thinking about sneaking her dry suit in my luggage. Is a Scubapro Everdry overkill?

thanks!

 

[diversteve]

Physical Oceanography - NOAA Tides & Currents is about 15?mins. north of Waikoloa. Note that the timescale is GMT not Hawaii local. 10 hours difference.

 

[DiveMaven]

Maui is 79-80 degrees today. Same water as the Big Island, so if you plan using those numbers, you'll be fine.

 

[AZTinman]

Just returned from the Big Island... minimum water temps were 80 degrees on most of my dives. The majority of my dives (and I did a bunch) involved maximum depths in the low 90 ft. range. My computer recorded no significant thermoclines.

One site (Garden Eel Cove) had minimum water temps of 77 degrees. Our dive there was a maximum depth of 44 ft. as it was a night dive attempt to bring in some manta rays.

I stayed toasty warm in a 5 mil with no hood and tropical weight gloves. There was in interesting mix of suits on the boats of two different dive ops I booked with. The mix ranged from no suit at all (one gal did her dives in an teeny weenie bikini) up to 7/8 mil semi-dry suits. Some divers wore hoods; some didn't.

-AZTinman

 

[spoolin01]

The couple of times I've used my 4mm fullsuit it was too warm, especially above water. The 2.5mm was mostly right except after a couple of long, slow repetitive dives. Even then it's not really cold, just cooler than comfortable. I usually go when the water is a couple of degrees cooler, and I'd put myself more on the easily cold side of the spectrum. You see a lot of 5mm shorties there. I prefer the fullsuit for rash protection.

I don't believe there's really a thermocline at rec depths, maybe it's just subtle and I don't think about it. It's definitely a bit warmer in the top couple of feet, but the gradient below that is not steep.

 

[fisheater]

I saw 79F/78F on my dives there last week. Both sides of the island.

I didn't experience any thermoclines at depth.
I did, however, get chilled in the freshwater "bathes" along the shore at Leleiwi in Hilo. The haloclines were fun to scooter through.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalko

 

[chuck e]

82F last Tuesday