I'm super late at this, and going off memory, so please forgive me for any lack of details.
We spent the first 16 days of September in Kona, then Maui. The Maui portion of the trip was partially a work trip, and if I were there just for leisure, and knew what I know now, we would have spent our entire trip on Kona. Alas, we only got 3 days to enjoy the big island. Enjoy it, we did!
We started off with an extremely ambitious itinerary, because schedules would not work out otherwise. My husband really wanted to do the blackwater dive, and I really wanted to do the Manta dive, so we figured out how to fit them both in. We arrived in Kona around 4pm from mainland, and at 7, we met Kona Honu Divers for the blackwater dive. We were certain for a moment that we were doomed, after our flight had electrical problems before departure and they had to reboot. Thankfully, the pilot found a shortcut and got us to our tight connection on time! Anyways, I was equal parts nervous and excited for the blackwater dive. What I imagined was a sea full of luminescence. What I got was horribly sea sick, and a sense of impending doom. This is a dive that you either love or you hate, and I fell solidly in the hate category. I did enjoy the pictures that the dive master showed us of his amazing finds on this dive. He actually had a shot of a baby octopus riding a seahorse! That was the extent of my enjoyment, though, because the underwater experience was horrid for me. I could not control my buoyancy to save my life, so I bounced around from the bottom of the rope to the surface on multiple occasions. I'm usually pretty darn good with bouyancy, but out there in the dark is a whole different ballgame. I tried to watch my dive computer, but if there is a way to keep the light on, I couldn't find it. The critters were not luminescent, they are simply translucent. And tiny. I didn't see anything particularly memorable, until we were up on the boat and a seahorse floated on the surface. It was the first dive that I've surface early because I was mentally exhausted from stressing about buoyancy and I was getting seasick. If I could do it over again, I would just snorkel this one. I feel like it would be a much better experience for me. They tell you most of the cool stuff is right below the surface, anyways. So, super long travel day followed up by a terrible dive=not so great start to our Kona trip, but that was okay. We had four more dives the next day!
Our first two dives the next day were good dives, With around 120 dives under our belt, it's the first dives we have been on in a while where we felt like the novices. The people with us were incredible! I've never seen such amazing buoyancy control (we are talking hovering 2 inches off the ground for extended periods of time, without touching anything.) We were the first group in, and the last group out of the water, clocking about ninety minutes on each dive. When we surfaced, they told us they had around 1k dives each, so that pepped us up! Golden Arches was the first dive and Malik's Pond was the second. They were very macro-focused dives, with lots of fun small stuff. Our favorite was the Pom Pom Crab!
Our day only got better from here, with the two manta dives. The first dive, right before sunset was absolutely incredible. I was having fun checking out a flounder when I looked up and noticed a Harlequin Shrimp chilling just inside a small cave. It was incredible! Our DM said he's never seen one in the open like that. Next, the Mantas decided to show up for dinner a bit early, so we got to see at least three of them swimming around us. While I was filming the mantas, I hear the dive master tap tap tap. I couldn't fathom what could possibly be more important than the mantas, until I heard the squeal of a dolphin pod! These dolphins swam right up to me, even splitting to go around me! I was one with pod!
I don't normally love "staged" dives, but the Manta night dive was out of this world. Now, I was in two wetsuits, totaling 8mm, so I was buoyant as I could possibly be. I had something like 20 pounds in my BCD, plus three rocks on my lap, and I was still tippy. Plus my arms were DYING from holding up the light (against the resistance of two wetsuits) so don't judge the periodic tip overs and lowering of my arm in the video. I was trying to just be in the moment, and let the videoing be secondary. It was way more challenging than I expected.
The next day, we did Preacher's Arch and Turtle Heaven. Preacher's Arch was a lot of macros again, and Turtle Heaven was turtles, of course, and a tiger shark in the distance.
Kona was quite amazing to us! I will post the videos shortly, along with my Maui report.
I was EXTREMELY impressed with Kona Honu divers. So much so that I actually want to quite my day job, move to Kona, and work with them. It was a top notch group.
We spent the first 16 days of September in Kona, then Maui. The Maui portion of the trip was partially a work trip, and if I were there just for leisure, and knew what I know now, we would have spent our entire trip on Kona. Alas, we only got 3 days to enjoy the big island. Enjoy it, we did!
We started off with an extremely ambitious itinerary, because schedules would not work out otherwise. My husband really wanted to do the blackwater dive, and I really wanted to do the Manta dive, so we figured out how to fit them both in. We arrived in Kona around 4pm from mainland, and at 7, we met Kona Honu Divers for the blackwater dive. We were certain for a moment that we were doomed, after our flight had electrical problems before departure and they had to reboot. Thankfully, the pilot found a shortcut and got us to our tight connection on time! Anyways, I was equal parts nervous and excited for the blackwater dive. What I imagined was a sea full of luminescence. What I got was horribly sea sick, and a sense of impending doom. This is a dive that you either love or you hate, and I fell solidly in the hate category. I did enjoy the pictures that the dive master showed us of his amazing finds on this dive. He actually had a shot of a baby octopus riding a seahorse! That was the extent of my enjoyment, though, because the underwater experience was horrid for me. I could not control my buoyancy to save my life, so I bounced around from the bottom of the rope to the surface on multiple occasions. I'm usually pretty darn good with bouyancy, but out there in the dark is a whole different ballgame. I tried to watch my dive computer, but if there is a way to keep the light on, I couldn't find it. The critters were not luminescent, they are simply translucent. And tiny. I didn't see anything particularly memorable, until we were up on the boat and a seahorse floated on the surface. It was the first dive that I've surface early because I was mentally exhausted from stressing about buoyancy and I was getting seasick. If I could do it over again, I would just snorkel this one. I feel like it would be a much better experience for me. They tell you most of the cool stuff is right below the surface, anyways. So, super long travel day followed up by a terrible dive=not so great start to our Kona trip, but that was okay. We had four more dives the next day!
Our first two dives the next day were good dives, With around 120 dives under our belt, it's the first dives we have been on in a while where we felt like the novices. The people with us were incredible! I've never seen such amazing buoyancy control (we are talking hovering 2 inches off the ground for extended periods of time, without touching anything.) We were the first group in, and the last group out of the water, clocking about ninety minutes on each dive. When we surfaced, they told us they had around 1k dives each, so that pepped us up! Golden Arches was the first dive and Malik's Pond was the second. They were very macro-focused dives, with lots of fun small stuff. Our favorite was the Pom Pom Crab!
Our day only got better from here, with the two manta dives. The first dive, right before sunset was absolutely incredible. I was having fun checking out a flounder when I looked up and noticed a Harlequin Shrimp chilling just inside a small cave. It was incredible! Our DM said he's never seen one in the open like that. Next, the Mantas decided to show up for dinner a bit early, so we got to see at least three of them swimming around us. While I was filming the mantas, I hear the dive master tap tap tap. I couldn't fathom what could possibly be more important than the mantas, until I heard the squeal of a dolphin pod! These dolphins swam right up to me, even splitting to go around me! I was one with pod!
I don't normally love "staged" dives, but the Manta night dive was out of this world. Now, I was in two wetsuits, totaling 8mm, so I was buoyant as I could possibly be. I had something like 20 pounds in my BCD, plus three rocks on my lap, and I was still tippy. Plus my arms were DYING from holding up the light (against the resistance of two wetsuits) so don't judge the periodic tip overs and lowering of my arm in the video. I was trying to just be in the moment, and let the videoing be secondary. It was way more challenging than I expected. The next day, we did Preacher's Arch and Turtle Heaven. Preacher's Arch was a lot of macros again, and Turtle Heaven was turtles, of course, and a tiger shark in the distance.
Kona was quite amazing to us! I will post the videos shortly, along with my Maui report.
I was EXTREMELY impressed with Kona Honu divers. So much so that I actually want to quite my day job, move to Kona, and work with them. It was a top notch group.
