Maui vs. Big Island for first trip to HI

[diversteve]

Trips to Lanai are done by day boat from Maui. IIRC the only dive operator there is the one at the Four Seasons resort. And even they used Trilogy (catamaran) for boat diving the last time I checked. It might even be a Trilogy satellite office?

2 dives off Lana'i from West Maui and you're back around noon. Typically (not always) boats that leave from the Lahaina area go to Lanai, boats from the Kihei boat ramp go to Molokini. Lahaina Divers or Extended Horizons would be my choices.

IDK who is diving Molokai from Maui now - if anyone. Last year Lahaina Divers used to do Hammerhead trips out there but they don't list it on their website now. They do a Hammerhead dive off West Maui now. At one time Extended Horizons did also but they stopped a couple years ago.

http://molokaifishanddive.com/molokai-scuba-dive.php does boat charters from Molokai so I guess you could take the ferry over...

For sharks - Shark Condos off Molokini is a strong possibilty also...it's a fairly deep dive. There's also a Manta cleaning station off Maui, Ed Robinson's (and other operators) know where it is. My buddy saw three there one afternoon just before dusk.

Some info on shoredives off either island:

Scuba Shore Diving Site Listing for: Maui, Hawaiian Islands
Scuba Shore Diving Site Listing for: The Big Island, Hawaiian Islands

 

[andrethediver]

Thanks for the information. I did a bit of reading on Maui and as your post suggests it seems like most interesting dive sites in this vicinity are around Molokai and Lanai as well as some smaller islands (as well as Molokini crater of course)...

 

[spoolin01]

The shorediving.com site has some of the easy Big Island sites. Place of Refuge (aka Two-Step) is by far the best, IMO - great coral, some holes to look in, good possibility of a long dolphin encounter, and located at the back of a narrow bay giving protection from groundswell. It's a 30 mile drive south from Kailua Town. Ke'ei is nearby and also often nice diving - more holes, and great coral - but is a little more exposed, so less often divable. The Old Airport west end is also nice - left, right, or straight out. The entry in the small bay past the pavement end isn't good when there's a south swell up, but it's protected from the north swells. The near end, entering in the little pocket just to the right of the lone beach house, is also a pretty tame entry often. I've only gone left (east) there, for the puka probing. That website mentions a couple of spots along Alii Drive south of town - Pahoehoe and 4 Mile. There are numerous marked Shoreline Access spots along that 5 mile stretch, and I'd bet any of them would be nice - I've done 4-Mile, '4.5 Mile', '5 Mile' (north from Kahaluu Bay entry), off Casa De Emdeko (Casa Caves mooring site), and a couple closer to town, and all are worth diving. You can enter at Kahaluu Park, which is OK snorkeling and tame fish, swim out past the surfing break on a calm day, and go left, right, or out. With the exception of Ke'ei, the sites mentioned so far are accessible w/o regard to vehicle ground clearance. 40 miles north of Kailua, Puako is a popular and beautiful spot, though in my several forays, I've found the viz to be slightly worse there than most other places. Might just be happenstance or wintertime conditions, I don't know. The end of Puako road is the best access. The many earlier access points along the the road involve crossing 50 yds of very shallow lava-top to get to the bench so can only be done under the calmest conditions. Even the end of the road can be tricky when the swells are only slightly up. You really have to pay attention to tidal swings when diving along the mid-stretch there, since water depths may not allow a swimming entry/exit at low tide. We did an entry from the first access point past the Puako Bay mooring field, swimming the long distance from the west side of that bay pocket out to the outside of the reef drop-off - that was also a nice dive with easy entry, but a bit of a swim. Saw a small magnificent snake eel there at the entry, a rarity.

There are lots of other spots where entry/exit conditions are more critical - the entire stretch from Keahole Pt (end of the OTEC energy lab road just south of the airport) down around the point at Pine Trees is great diving, but very, very tricky lava bench exits for the most part. There are a dozen or so moored diving sites along that stretch that the charters use and favor. You'll see divers doing shore entries there, but not many, and its truly a spot for only experienced shore divers, and the calmest of days.

I've not found rip currents except at spots where you enter across shallows - which I try to avoid, at all. That's why I like the lava bench spots. Anyplace you're exiting in shallow water you can get surf surge and eddy currents when the groundswell is up at all. Sometimes when you swim out towards the shoulder of the drop-off or even just deeper water, like along the OTEC area - you encounter long-shore currents, so you have to adjust the dive plan for those.

If you want to see where the charters dive, there's a booklet of West Hawaii mooring sites that gives the site name, GPS coordinates, aerial photo, and brief description that you can buy at Big Island Divers.

 

[Shaka Doug]

I vote for Maui... but then again I'm totally biased so....

You can't go wrong with either island. Try to squeeze in both if you can is my advice!

 

[farsidefan1]

Another vote for the big island. I don't think it is a close call. Especially if you are staying a week. I'd have givin you a different answer had you not said it was a diving vacation. If your plan was a week on the beach sipping umbrella drinks, well Maui would be hard to beat.

 

[andrethediver]

Is Maui shore diving much different from the BI? I hear they have great beaches...and then there's that crater. I would certainly prefer to do both if it did not involve the hassles of flying over.

Spoolin01 - Thanks for this very detailed information. I will try to hit at least some of these sites.

 

[friscuba]

I think spoolin01 nailed it on the Big Island shore diving for the most part. My only additional comment might be that when I go up to Puako and the entries are a bit too much for easy access due to wind chop or a bit of surf, Mahukona (about 20 minutes to the north) is my automatic default. It's an old sugar wharf/state park that's fairly protected, an easy entry, junk to look at and lots of coral. Down south another spot I like is Ho'okena beach, although it might take you a couple exploratory dives to find the good stuff - I know Thalassamania likes it as much as I do, although I prefer Ke'ei and 2 steps.

Unfortunately I kind of doubt there are many here who've done a fair amount of shore diving off both Maui and the Big Island, so direct comparisons are hard to find. I've only done one shore dive on Maui, off the old airport park , it was pretty lame, a lot of sand, halimeda algae, some patch reef, nice turtle population though, but I don't know how much of the site we saw in the 60-70 minutes or so we dove there, I'd need to explore it more, don't know how it compares to other Maui sites. It coulda been the day, some times you just don't see much. I'd actually like to do a week over there myself some day. With only a week of diving, I'd pick an island and be happy, it'll all be quite decent for Hawaii if you have nothing to compare it to.

 

[andrethediver]

Thank you for this, I think I am set with information about shore diving sites. I've seen a number of Kona shops recommended on this forum but which one is a good choice for renting tanks/weights as well as getting refills for shore diving and is located in the general vicinity of the sites mentioned above? Thanks.

 

[spoolin01]

Jack's and Big Island Divers are both large shops, there may also be others with good tank inventories, maybe someone else can add to this. Those two and others are in or just outside Kailua. I've used Big Island for years with zero complaints - good hours (8-6), never had to wait for up to 4 tanks when I drop in, the fills are consistent, and the tanks are in good shape for rentals. From what I know, rental prices are comparable at most shops - though I'd definitely try to negotiate over the weight rentals, they can be oddly high for longer rentals. For a couple of years, we shipped our weights in USPS Flat Rate boxes because the rent for two weeks approached $100 for each of us! - the last couple of years, we've gotten much better pricing on the weights, and rent from BID. Everyone in that process is much happier about that, I'm sure. The couple of times I've checked, I thought the BID longer term rental policy/price was better for my needs, but you should make a couple of calls for quotes on what you want. Everyone rents 80s or 62s to shore divers that I'm aware of, whereas on Maui there's one shop with 100s. We struggle to get two tanks a day in, so we rent two apiece, and come back to Kailua for fills at the end or start of each day. There's one shop down in Captain Cook/Kealakekua with a fill sign out but I've never been in, and Kohala Diving way north, but otherwise, Kailua or the industrial park on its north edge is where the fills are found. It may be that some of the big resort hotels will shuttle tanks for you, I don't know.

I've done a handful of 1-2 week shore diving trips to Maui, and there are definitely enough interesting dives to fill a couple of weeks. In Kihei and south, most sites are really shallow - hard to find 40 ft, or even 20 at some (I'm thinking of the hotel beaches in Wailea, the Makena area) - there's not much coral/reef, and the viz suffers from sand, algae, or whatever it is. It's still fun diving and I'm sure the local guides know the sites much better than I. There's some spectacular coral in spots over a fair stretch of the coast south of Lahaina (from Olowalu south to the tunnel), and Honolua Bay way up north is also great for a couple of dives. I don't know the area between Lahaina and Honolua well, I haven't been able to find much access, though the Sheraton 'Black Rock' dive is popular (I've only done it once, at night - lots of eels out, and a gorgeous squid). It looks like there's good structure along there in places, I just haven't figured out how to get to it. Overall, I'd say you'd be in for longer shore swims and shallower, sandy surf entries on Maui.

 

[andrethediver]

Spoolin01 - thanks for this valuable information. I will make sure to check out BID shop per your recommendation. Hopefully we can negotiate some sort of a multi-day package as we are interested in doing some local boat diving as well as shore diving. Its interesting about the cost of weights rental - this is something we never have to pay for when we're shore diving (rarely) in Cozumel. Regardless, do you have any recollection of a going tank/weight rentals cost? This seems to be missing from their site. Another question about diving flag float - is that truly a requirement for shore diving in Hawaii and do you normally rent that or bring your own with you? Thanks.