Diving in Hawaii Big Island

[lonebrave]

I'm diving with Kona Diving Co for their 2-tank Manta dive on the 19th and the AM dive on the 20th. Maybe we'll run into each other.

 

[mBrennan]

Thanks for all the great advice, I will check them all out. Do any company do more advanced diving than others? Called Jacks and it seems like they are mainly catering the open water divers, 60 feet max depth and have no advanced dives scheduled that week. Nothing wrong with that but if I am diving there for a week I want to dive as much variety as possible.

 

[friscuba]

There is plenty of variety to be found in Kona, but for the most part I wouldn't call it all that advanced. I think you'll find that most companies "cater" to the open water diver simply because that's what the vast majority of the divers that get here are. Kona has a variety of sites, some will be reef oriented, some will be structure and topography oriented, some will be more critter oriented, many will have a mix of all. Most sites have deep water very near the boat mooring, however for the most part the reefs do tend to peter out to sand and boulders below 60'-80 feet or so, although there are excerptions. There are a few tech instructors around, one or two visit this board on occasion, that I think hitch rides with a local company or two, that may be of help for some serious "advanced" stuff. I"ve seen "advanced" dives touted as deep, dark or drift, in some cases, I suspect you can find those without paying for an "advanced" charter on occasion with several of the companies.

We're coming into the slowdown after easter, so there may be fewer specialty charters scheduled in advace with some companies that offer them simply becasue they need enough divers to make the specialty charter go. Check around, you may find that most of the companies are pretty similar in what they offer. Some are larger, some are smaller. In my case, I'm small, and sometimes it's tough to guarantee going out for just one customer... I go with just two (gotta get to two to get to 4 or 6 on the boat) if scheduled well in advance all the time, but one just doesn't make it work unless there are others on board, and when we're lightly loaded we can do some different stuff if the divers are up for it.

I don't think you'll find a bad dive up in the bunch here, everyone's pretty good, all are somewhat different from each other.

 

[Hoomi]

You really want to get some variety in your diving, check out one of the "Black Water" dives. Both Jack's Diving Locker and Kona Honu Divers have them. We're heading to Kona in just over three weeks, and we're planning on the "Pelagic Magic" dive with Jack's. We know other divers that have done the Pelagic Magic dive, and they all talk about how awesome it is. Go to Youtube, and check out the videos from it.

Another friend did the Manta Ray Night Dive, and said it was also an awesome dive. We've got that one on our "to-do" list while we're there.

 

[DivemasterDennis]

We've had great experiences with both Kona Honu and Jack's.
DivemasterDennis

 

[sweathog13]

Just got back from Kona, dove with Kona Honu divers, first class operation.

Same here. Went on the 2 tank afternoon/Manta with Kona Honu a couple weeks ago. Very happy with their service.

 

[smellzlikefish]

I always recommend Kona Diving Company. They tend to cater their charters to the skill level of whoever shows up from beginner to rebreather. The neat thing about Kona is that the newbs can have a blast at sixty while on the same dive you might be playing with a Tinker's butterfly at 130. As Friscuba said, there really isn't any such thing as difficult Kona dive sites.