Honolulu Wedding/ Oahu or Maui Diving?

[Cacia]

Hey, Taxgeek, careful about what you say about LA! I love Los Angeles also. I was just saying to Pearl, why does everyone always knock LA? Don't people know you can get to some of the best diving in the world (channel islands) in 14 minutes flat in a helicopter from LA? To be in Beverly Hills, Or Newport Beach, or Laguna Beach and then-- boom: thirty minutes later be in a kelp forest with seals nipping your fins and sunbeams coming through the kelp, well, it is top shelf. And I am saying that having been to Palau few times.....which is the gold standard, I grant you that.

Yes, afternoon charters run pretty consistently with most boats. 80% of the time they go, I would say. These are usually the shallow dives...

I guess the frantic pace of going to Maui from here, dealing with security lines, etc would make Oahu my option. Good luck and enjoy the wedding!

 

[Taxgeek]

Oh, I agree Catherine. Our diving is very nice -- wasn't meaning to knock that so much as the concrete jungle. ;-) I'm kinda tired of it, haven't been out of town (besides diving) for awhile. Thanks again for the info.

 

[sea nmf]

If you are coming in July, there is decent shore diving on the North Shore of Oahu. If you have the entire day, you could get in 4 dives if you had some locals to do it with, and shore diving is always economical. (I'm available weekends) However, I suggest you go to some of the wrecks as well. They are pretty nice. I like critters and there are lots of critters on the wrecks. Most operators will go to one wreck and one reef for the one boat trip (morning or afternoon). You could purchase both morning and afternoon to get 4 dives but it will be pricey.

I don't know about diving on Maui; there may be a bunch of great shore dives there you can do with the locals as well. I've only been once and was not impressed. We were trying for the back side of Molokini but conditions prevented that so we did some near shore sites that didn't do anything for me (except for hearing the whales sing - but you won't be here when the whales are here).

I did really like Kona diving. They have the extra benefit of having the Manta night dive (which would give you 3 dives.)

 

[Taxgeek]

I did really like Kona diving. They have the extra benefit of having the Manta night dive (which would give you 3 dives.)

Yeah, I guess I should toss teh maui option and look into Kona. Oahu seems like the best bet overall, but I'll look into Kona.

Oh oahu, one thing I'm a little concerned about is dive site variety - seems like the dive boats like to go back to teh same wrecks morning/afternoon or day after day . . . would get monotonous. Maybe some boat, some shore! ;-)

 

[justleesa]

You could always book with someone that dives off all shores or book with different companies (as most ops that own the boat are so to say stationed and only run out of the one harbor).