Quick Oahu visit Thanksgiving 2008 - help selecting shore dive sites?

[diver858]

Wife and I are sneaking away for a few days to Oahu during Thanksgiving week, and would like to take in a day of diving. We have already done most of the major boat dives, and instead would like to try an easy, relaxing day of shore dives. Prefer beginner, relatively shallow sites.

Have read through the related threads here, searched some shore diving sites, and come up with the following:

Shark's Cove and Three Tables sound nice, but conditions may not be suitable for late November.

Rainbow Reef, Electric Beach, Turtle Canyon, Turtle Street, Fire House and Turtle Heaven all sound interesting.

We have never dove Hanauma Bay, but are concerned with the crowds - PERHAPS a night dive?

Will be staying in Waikiki, plan to rent a car for the day, and would like to lounge on the beach between dives.

We would GREATLY appreciate any help narrowing down the list to 3 or 4 sites, and suggestion on a friendly, helpful dive shop to rent tanks, weights - will be bringing our own gear.

 

[kanonfodr]

my first tip - shorediving.com

2ndly - Western and southern shores will have a higher likelihood of good conditions. I know for a fact that Electric Beach can be counted on to have very good conditions on any day, but if you go on the weekends expect to find a dive class or two going on. They aren't too bothersome, but last time me and my partner-in-crime dove that site, we inadvertantly swam right through their class while trying to untangle ourselves from our dive flag. The lesson - watch your spatial relationship to those exhuast pipes out there. As far as the beach...meh. Ko Olina is right down the road for an enroute surface interval.

Hanauma Bay - I've never scuba'd, but snorkled and free-dived it plenty of times and never found the crowds to be an issue, except for maybe a personal-belongings standpoint. The good scuba diving there is past the bouys, where not many others dare to venture. It's not dangerous, just not much more interesting than inside the bouys for the average tourist snorkler is all.

North Shore - hit or miss, don't trust the surf report too much. For diving, you can almost count on it to be wrong at the dive sites. That being said - North shore would be a gamble during Turkey-day due to exceptionally big waves that time of year. But I will say this, Shark's Cove is a blast. I dove that with my buddy and we had over an hour of bottom time which led to us getting crazy lost and surface-swimming about 400 yards back in. Be forewarned, learn from our mistakes.

As far as the other divesites, I'm not the expert by any means. But use the website to scout out, and just like you learned during Open Water - always have an alternate site.

And btw, have fun!!

Peace,
Greg

 

[scottitheduck]

Some of the sites you have mentioned are boat dives. I would suggest you look at doing Electric Beach. It certainly provides the most bang for the buck. Other sites that may be tricky depending on the weather include Blowhole and Lanai Lookout.

Let me know if you have any further questions!

Mahalo,

G

 

[diver858]

Some of the sites you have mentioned are boat dives. I would suggest you look at doing Electric Beach. It certainly provides the most bang for the buck. Other sites that may be tricky depending on the weather include Blowhole and Lanai Lookout.

Let me know if you have any further questions!

Mahalo,

G

Thanks, Scott.

Can you mention which sites are boat dives? Web sites I read suggested them as shore dives.

Regarding Blowhole and Lanai Lookout - both are listed as more advanced sites, and the former is reportedly a site of a high number of diving fatalities - something we prefer to avoid.

 

[scottitheduck]

The way I see it.....

Rainbow Reef and Turtle Canyons are boat dives. You may want to lean towards Hanauma Bay if you are looking to hang out on the beach in between dives. You are right about Lanai Lookout and Blowhole, they can be tricky without a guide or questionable conditions.

I might also suggest you dive Magic Island. It's a bit of a walk with your gear, but you can swim out the channel and in front of the breakwater by the lagoon and it often times has some nice critters.

Good luck and let me know if you might be looking towards some of our famous wrecks or drift dives.

Mahalo,

Gabe

 

[perrypp]

I would suggest that you give Makaha Caverns a try. On westside very nice beach and great dive.
Anything on the North Shore is done for the Season the current is Ripping and the Viz is no good now. Hanama Bay to shallow for scuba from the beach better if you go from Ocean side. I work at a dive shop here in Oahu let me know if you need any further help

Perry

 

[ScubaAndDreams]

Hanauma Bay is just fine from the beach....you can easily get to 40' on a nice long dive....

Electric Beach is fine, just make sure you don't leave valuables in the vehicle. Conditions there are good most of the time, which means you can pretty much count on diving it almost any day.

This will likely be the first time I disagree with Gabe, but Magic Island can be like diving a sewer on certain days if you don't time it right.

So my suggestions are Hanauma Bay or Electric Beach. Forget about the north shore.

 

[perrypp]

I wouldnt dive Hanauma Bay it is sad.... The state has pretty much let the reef get trashed

 

[VBlueV]

agree with sherm (scubaanddreams).. electric beach and hanauma bay fit your bill.
and so does makaha caverns.

btw.. i've dove hanauma bay (past the inner orange buoys) out to both outside corners of the bay as a big race-track (on a set of doubles).. and found the coral to be very much alive and well with tons of different fish and turtles to keep your interest..

for beginners on singles.. just follow the center cables to your turn-point.. then follow the cables back to the buoys.. easy. lots to see.

if you dive the east side.. try island divers hawaii.. for your tanks/weights..
http://www.oahuscubadiving.com/

and the west side.. ocean concepts.. especially if you're gonna dive makaha caverns..
http://www.oceanconcepts.com/

 

[Island Style]

We just dove Hanauma Bay last Sunday...we arrived at ~7:30am. We found that this is a great time to get there...1) There is still parking. 2) Most of the tour groups have not arrived yet. 3) It gives us about 1/2 hour of getting ready before the first tram run starts at 8am.

I would highly recommend paying the minimal fees to ride the tram. $2.00 gets you and all day pass, but you have to pay an additional $1.00 each way with your tank. so a 1 tank dive will cost you $4.00 while a two tank dive will cost you $6.00. I wouldn't leave to many valuables on the beach.


Hanauma Bay is open till 10pm on every second Saturday of each month...fyi.

Our latest dive was awesome. Here is something to think about. The worst part of the dive is getting past the first reef and a little beyond...you have to go through like a sandstorm, where the visibility is almost zero...it's very easy to get separated...once you are past this, head over to the right, to a section called the Witches Brew...OMG...the last dive was like being in a 40' deep aquarium...with at least 100' visibility...We saw a school of ~200 papio hunting...even the recent remnants of a sea turtle...

Electric Beach is always fun as metioned above...I've never had any problems with dive classes going on...it's kind of fun playing around the electric generation plant cooling pipe...Lots of fish.

Sharks Cove and 3 Tables are one of my favorite dive spots...but as mentioned, this time of the year is hit and miss.

Haleiwa trench...we dove this a few months back...once at night during the recent Lobster opening...fun, but we surfaced swam quite a ways out prior to diving for the lobster...tiring.

We are planning on heading out to Makaha Beach tomorrow...unfortunate thing about this dive is that we have to surface swim quite a ways out...but we will be diving where the boats do...