osujamesc
Registered
tx.lakerats:
I've been living in Maui for about 8 months now. I lived on Oahu for 3 years as a young kid. I've worked on Kauai, and visited the Big Island.
My opinions on the different islands:
Maui:
best one, why I chose to live here and why they say Maui No Ka Oi (Maui is the best). This is an excellent blend of tropical island and nice sized city. You can go to lots of places on the island and if you aren't following the Maui Revealed book, you won't see other people. You can also stay in Kihei, Lahaina, and Ka'anapali and see tons of people doing the same thing you are, visiting and living it up. The dive to do here can be found in a bunch of top-dives in America lists, Molokini. It is a half sunken Volcano crater. You can imagine the crazy things you'll see and hear (Humpback Whales getting their groove on! haha). No joke, go 30 feet down and you hear the males singing sweet love songs to the ladies.
Big Island:
you can go skiing right now on top of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa as they are both blanketed with snow, and then you can drive down the mountain and go diving in a shorty. Not many places on earth that can happen! Kona is one of the top dive destinations. There are crazy things swimming through the channel between Maui and the big island. The volcano is always crazy to see erupting and there are very few people on the island (compared with the size of the island). Hilo and Kailua-Kona are the big towns and are more like what Hawaii is supposed to be in my mind. Less haole's and more locals (yes, I am a dirty haole too). The big island diving is probably the best, but as the island is very young, relatively speaking, there are much fewer beaches. More rocky coastline that makes the diving so very good.
Kauai:
Kauai is like country living to me. The diving is pretty good, I'd put it third behind Maui and the Big Island. I dove with SeaSport while I was there, they are a great staff, and I highly recommend them. Niihau is supposed to be a sweet dive, though I didn't do it.
Oahu:
Most populated. Lots and lots of stuff to do. Honolulu is probably one of the coolest cities I've ever been to. I kind of compare it to Hong Kong, where you have this east meets west business environment going on. I have never done any diving in Oahu, but it's supposed to be decent, probably last on the list though for diving.
Other smaller islands:
Molokai and Lanai are very unpopulated. That's why the lepers were sent to Molokai. I have yet to go to either, and I don't know if there is much diving on either. You can get a boat out of Lahaina on Maui that dives around Lanai, never heard of anyone diving Molokai though.
You can't go to Niihau, no one is allowed. It has been preserved for the native hawaiians. It is actually really hard for the local hawaiians from Kauai to get on the island too. They don't take kindly to strangers so don't try it.
I hope this helps. Anyone living on Oahu can comment on the diving there.
the main thing to remember is that you are in Hawaii no matter which island you are, and it is beautiful everywhere. The people are great, they invented surfing, how awesome is the hawaiian culture. The food is awesome, get a "plate lunch" at any seedy looking place and you are not likely to be disappointed.
Have fun,
James
