Is there good drift diving on the Hawaiian islands?

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DougieG

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I usually do an international dive trip in the summer, but with the Coronavirus, I would be more comfortable staying in the USA. I'm looking at the Hawaiian islands versus Florida. I want to do some drift diving. Florida has the West Palm Beach/Jupiter area for drift diving. Not sure if there is any drift diving in Hawaii. Any information would be most appreciated.

DougieG
 
Yes. I have done some fantastic drifts out of Hawaii Kai on Oahu: Spitting Cave, China Wall, Skimmon's Reef
 
Niʻihau has amazing drift diving. Back wall and Reefʻs End of Molokini (Maui) are pretty good drift dives as well.
 
Hi @DougieG

I've done Spitting Cave and China Wall off Oahu and Molokini Back Wall and Reef's End, all great dives. The diversity between Boynton Beach, West Palm and Jupiter is spectacular.
 
Diving near South Point on Big Island would be considered "drift diving". You'll need your own boat.
 
There is some fantastic drift diving on Kauai for sure. Locally there are some ledges on the south shore such as Brenneckes Ledge and Turtle Bluffs. Further to the west there is an extensive ledge that includes sites Amber's Arches and Shauna's Shelves. These aren't generally high octane drifts, but they do afford the opportunity to do non stationary dives in mild to moderate currents at times. More advanced drift diving is without a question available at Mana Crack on the west side of Kauai. That reef extends for miles and can at times have really "fun" currents. The best of the best advanced / drift / spectacular diving will be found off of the island of Niihau. Vertical walls in several areas make for fantastic drift diving opportunities. Any of these dives off Kauai or Niihau are however not 100% certain to have current on any given day. While advanced diving is always available at any of these locations - some days just don't have current. I would however expect that if you were doing multiple days of diving (especially if they included Niihau) would give you multiple chances at drift diving.

It's been many years since I have lived on Maui so I'll leave that to experts there to provide detailed information. What I can say is that Mike Severn's Diving has given us countless amazing dives over the years - many of which were drifts outside of Kihei and also at Molokini. In general I would say as an operation they set the bar for fantastic / professional dive operations in Hawaii.

Good luck planning your trip. Should you tilt towards Hawaii please feel free to send me a PM and I would be more than happy to help however I can.

Cheers
A
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/peregrine/

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