Just got back from two weeks of diving off Oahu. My wife, a diver we met last year in Grand Cayman, and I dove with Gabe Scotti's group at Kaimana Divers.
We were extremely pleased with Kaimana Divers. The dive guides were very helpful, accommodating and a fun bunch (primarily Denise, Gerie, Wil, Chayce and boat captain Jarrett.) Kaimana embarks out of Sand Island between the airport and Waikiki. We used their pickup service every day which turned out to be a great benefit! It would have been an absolute headache to drive to the dock every day what with the Honolulu traffic. And we used the driving time to have fun conversations with the dive guides! And since we were diving with them so much, Gabe offered to keep our primary gear (BC & wetsuits) and rinse it each night ... which we also took advantage of! With those additional services, I hope I tipped well enough!
Gabe lined us up to also dive on the west side for a couple days and the east side a couple days. One of the west side days got moved to the south side because of the winds and high seas.
On the south side we dove the multiple wrecks (Navy tug, Sea Tiger, YO-257, San Pedro, and LCM.) The wrecks are in good shape with both swim through and wreck penetration potential depending on the wreck. Life was abundant on all the wrecks. And the YO-257 has it's own website (http://www.yo257.com).
Other reef areas we dove included: Turtle Canyon (lots of green sea turtles as the name implies), 100 ft hole (not a hole and not at 100ft ... a platform-shaped reef structure at about 85 ft ... lots of eels, some white tip reef sharks, small school of large unicornfish, several nudis), Rojo Reef (lots of eels big and small, lots of small fish), Horseshoe reef (a number of undercut areas in the reef for green turtles to lodge themselves for a rest, small white tips, and other life similar to Rojo Reef), Mario World (the old sewage discharge pipe outlets ... not an active sewer! make for lots of interesting growth and holes to look into ... lots of life including nudibranches and a school of about 20 porcupinefish seem to occupy this area regularly.)
Also took advantage of a night dive. Dove the Sea Tiger and Horseshoe reef in the dark with "free" Friday-night fireworks show! We were finishing up our dive on the Sea Tiger and I had another diver come up and signal to me that he had 1700 psi. Well, he wasn't my buddy. He wasn't even part of our group. Just kinda looked at him and gave "ok". Tried to point him in the direction of his group but he didn't understand. His group was visible so not too worried about him ... and he had 1700 psi left for goodness sake! So we finished our dive and I think he finally caught a clue and figured out we weren't his dive team. A good story on the boat!
On the west side we dove on the Mahi wreck and at Land of Oz Reef. The Mahi wreck is pretty trashed due to storms and a heavy anchor being drug through the wreck which severely limits swim through / penetration opportunities but hasn't adversely affected the life it supports. A school of eagle rays was about 60 ft out from the wreck.
On the east side we left out of Hawaii Kai and dove on the Corsair wreck (WWII-era Corsair fighter went down as it was being flown from another island to Oahu in 1946), Upside Down LCU, and twice at Spitting Caves / China Wall (good drift dive ... saw a Monk Seal taking a nap in a sea cave ... more correctly a cavern with a huge entrance ... and he was just sipping on an air pocket in the ceiling; also lots of life including boxfish, cowfish, eels, frogfish, etc.) I like the dives on the east side but there was a bit of current on the two wrecks which made it a bit more of a challenge than normal but still doable by recreational divers with experience.
Surface intervals often had whale or dolphin sightings and the crew was more than happy to let us observe the whales at a respectful distance or even do some snorkeling with the dolphin pod that hung around us one day. And the boat keeps a good supply of snacks and sodas for the passengers which was also very much appreciated!
I really appreciated that the dive guides were respectful of the wildlife. In doing some research on who to go diving with, we saw some folks seeming to manhandle some octopi or go after turtles. We're not into that and only want some pictures and not manhandle the sea creatures. Gabe's crew had the same values so that was appreciated. We'd definitely use them again and would recommend them for anyone looking to dive Oahu!
We were extremely pleased with Kaimana Divers. The dive guides were very helpful, accommodating and a fun bunch (primarily Denise, Gerie, Wil, Chayce and boat captain Jarrett.) Kaimana embarks out of Sand Island between the airport and Waikiki. We used their pickup service every day which turned out to be a great benefit! It would have been an absolute headache to drive to the dock every day what with the Honolulu traffic. And we used the driving time to have fun conversations with the dive guides! And since we were diving with them so much, Gabe offered to keep our primary gear (BC & wetsuits) and rinse it each night ... which we also took advantage of! With those additional services, I hope I tipped well enough!
Gabe lined us up to also dive on the west side for a couple days and the east side a couple days. One of the west side days got moved to the south side because of the winds and high seas.
On the south side we dove the multiple wrecks (Navy tug, Sea Tiger, YO-257, San Pedro, and LCM.) The wrecks are in good shape with both swim through and wreck penetration potential depending on the wreck. Life was abundant on all the wrecks. And the YO-257 has it's own website (http://www.yo257.com).
Other reef areas we dove included: Turtle Canyon (lots of green sea turtles as the name implies), 100 ft hole (not a hole and not at 100ft ... a platform-shaped reef structure at about 85 ft ... lots of eels, some white tip reef sharks, small school of large unicornfish, several nudis), Rojo Reef (lots of eels big and small, lots of small fish), Horseshoe reef (a number of undercut areas in the reef for green turtles to lodge themselves for a rest, small white tips, and other life similar to Rojo Reef), Mario World (the old sewage discharge pipe outlets ... not an active sewer! make for lots of interesting growth and holes to look into ... lots of life including nudibranches and a school of about 20 porcupinefish seem to occupy this area regularly.)
Also took advantage of a night dive. Dove the Sea Tiger and Horseshoe reef in the dark with "free" Friday-night fireworks show! We were finishing up our dive on the Sea Tiger and I had another diver come up and signal to me that he had 1700 psi. Well, he wasn't my buddy. He wasn't even part of our group. Just kinda looked at him and gave "ok". Tried to point him in the direction of his group but he didn't understand. His group was visible so not too worried about him ... and he had 1700 psi left for goodness sake! So we finished our dive and I think he finally caught a clue and figured out we weren't his dive team. A good story on the boat!
On the west side we dove on the Mahi wreck and at Land of Oz Reef. The Mahi wreck is pretty trashed due to storms and a heavy anchor being drug through the wreck which severely limits swim through / penetration opportunities but hasn't adversely affected the life it supports. A school of eagle rays was about 60 ft out from the wreck.
On the east side we left out of Hawaii Kai and dove on the Corsair wreck (WWII-era Corsair fighter went down as it was being flown from another island to Oahu in 1946), Upside Down LCU, and twice at Spitting Caves / China Wall (good drift dive ... saw a Monk Seal taking a nap in a sea cave ... more correctly a cavern with a huge entrance ... and he was just sipping on an air pocket in the ceiling; also lots of life including boxfish, cowfish, eels, frogfish, etc.) I like the dives on the east side but there was a bit of current on the two wrecks which made it a bit more of a challenge than normal but still doable by recreational divers with experience.
Surface intervals often had whale or dolphin sightings and the crew was more than happy to let us observe the whales at a respectful distance or even do some snorkeling with the dolphin pod that hung around us one day. And the boat keeps a good supply of snacks and sodas for the passengers which was also very much appreciated!
I really appreciated that the dive guides were respectful of the wildlife. In doing some research on who to go diving with, we saw some folks seeming to manhandle some octopi or go after turtles. We're not into that and only want some pictures and not manhandle the sea creatures. Gabe's crew had the same values so that was appreciated. We'd definitely use them again and would recommend them for anyone looking to dive Oahu!
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