Hawaii advice- where is best to dive?

[DukeAMO]

Decent viz day on the Sea Tiger recently (not my video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKcINGbv0Ko#t=43

The Sea Tiger's awesome, but with the bottom at 120ish feet and most of the interesting stuff in the 80-100 foot range, it's not for OW divers like the original poster said they are, unless you all get a Deep or AOW certification and get in the habit of watching both your computer (for the NDL) and your air consumption. It doesn't take long to hit the NDL there; a few divers on our visit there were within 1-2 minutes of their NDL halfway through the dive, so we moved up higher on the wreck to get more time.

We had 30ish dives + AOW and were well within our comfort zone on both the Big Island (Kona) and Oahu (Waikiki and West side). "Poor vis" in Hawaii would equal "fantastic vis" in most of the places we dive, and assuming you let the local divers/shops direct you to the easier sites, you should be able to avoid most of the waves and currents.

 

[Dr. Lecter]

True enough, and I added the video more as an example of what diving on Oahu can look like than as a suggestion for the OP. Though with little to no current and excellent temps and viz, you can't really ask for a better place to start doing deeper dives. And I'm always happy to have OC tourists visit the wreck...gives me something to buzz on the scooter while doing my 120'-60' deco stops from deeper dives off the wreck's bow

 

[PJU]

We just had a great trip to Maui- the diving was actually wonderful- vis 100'+++, water temp mid-80's w/no thermocline, corals in really good shape and lots and lots of reef fish. Some rays, occasional turtles and reef sharks. We dove Turtle Reef and Mala Pier on Maui (the pier was by far better, a really nice dive), Lanai (outstanding! LOVED the Cathedrals and lava tubes) and Molokini Crater (like being in a huge aquarium- gorgeous). We dove with Lahaina Divers, and they were great to work with- totally professional, nice, fun, and equipment and boat were great. Would absolutely recommend them- and thanks to the previous posters who had mentioned them!

 

[spoolin01]

Great to hear a good report from Maui. Next time you go, try the Big Island. For my money, the shore diving there beats Maui hands down in almost all respects. Boat dives [-]on[/-] from Maui to the nearby islands are a really nice feature, but Big Island has lots of great spots as well.

 

[hazmat]

Great to hear the trip was great. I too love the cathedrals.

I agree that Big Island has great diving. Manta ray flybys.

 

[drbill]

So which island do you see the most tiger sharks? I'm not sure I want to go there!! Actually I'm thinking of heading to Maui this winter.

 

[Paco II]

Maui has some wonderful diving!

So which island do you see the most tiger sharks? I'm not sure I want to go there!! Actually I'm thinking of heading to Maui this winter.