Kona Dive Operations

[Diving I Do]

Hi all. I'm new to the board and I have a question about which dive operation to use. My wife and I are coming to Kailua-Kona for week for our first Hawaii dive trip. We have been to Hawaii before, but not to dive. We are both AOW and Nitrox certified with 50+ dives over 4 years of trips in the Carribean. We are looking for a good dive operation to dive with while on vacation. Someone safe with decent service. We aren't newbies, but not old hands either.

I have done the obligatory search of he forum and read a bunch of posts. We are considering Big Island Divers. Jacks Dive Locker looks good too, but I have read the posts about them and they seem to be the big fish in Kona. I don't really want a cattle car approach.

A friend also recommended Bottom Time. There isn't much on this forum about Bottom Time, but they have gotten some bad reviews on Trip Advisor (not a dive specific forum). I understand they are now under new management and have cleaned up a bit.

Do you guys and gals have any thoughts on Big Island Divers vs Bottom Time? Or are we missing the boat entirely (pun intended) on these two choices. Any sage advice would be appreciated. We will be in Kona in less than a month. HooRah.

 

[friscuba]

Bottom Time changed hands some time in the last 3-6 weeks. I kind of know a couple of their people but haven't heard reports of what the diving's like yet with them, I suspect if there were inherited issues they'll be working on fixing them.

I think you'll find most of the Kona dive operators are pretty good. If you're looking at a small company with a boat that goes with 2-6 divers, check out mine.

Have fun,

 

[wader]

I am going to Kona this March and between shore dives, we are using wanna dive!!!

 

[Scuba_HI]

dove with big island divers a lot great op, but we are going to try steve at wanna dive if times work out at the end of february

 

[TSandM]

We went out with Big Island Divers this last week. The people at the shop and on the boat were extremely pleasant and friendly, although they confused our friend's reservation, so he ended up not going out with us, which was disappointing.

They offer very nice service, which includes loading the boat at the shop and rinsing and storing gear overnight after the dive, so we could pick it up the next day.

The boat was comfortable and had plenty of room -- we had 14 people on it, I believe, but some of them were snorkelers. There was Nitrox available, although the surcharge was a hefty $12 a tank. There was no analyzer on the boat, so if you are going to dive Nitrox, make sure you bring yours with you.

We did the Manta dive and the Black Water dive. The manta dive was disappointing, as no mantas came, but that's not within the power of the dive op to guarantee and we knew that. We did a pleasant night dive as the second half and saw some fun things, but it was marred by having one of the divers behaving erratically, and he was eventually separated from the group and ended up on another boat. They didn't buddy anybody up, which I think might have helped. It's hard to keep groups together when you have so many people in the water at once. (I think there were nine boats at the site, and I would guess forty divers or more.)

The Black Water dive is an interesting one. You go out offshore beyond the shelf, and get off the boat in 6000 feet of water. You're on a 50 foot or so tether, and you spend the dive under the boat, watching the strange creatures that float by. It's a unique dive, and although we didn't find anything really spectacular, it was a unique experience and I'm glad we did it. There are many, many gelatinous animals that come up to the surface at night, and they are beautiful with dive lights on them.

I thought it was a nice touch that the dive op gave us coupons for a half price retry on the Manta dive, although it's unlikely we'll get back there within a year to use them.

At any rate, I liked the people a lot and they tried very hard to offer good service. The reservations process is a little disorganized, and they need to buff up their safety procedures, I think.