mjarens
Contributor
Just back from winter getaway in Poipu, and put my dive gear to good use. Booked five boat trips with SeaSport Divers SEASPORT DIVERS #1 on Kauai and Niihau - Scuba dive on Kauai and Niihau, Shore Dives, Boat Dives, and Nitrox. in Poipu. South shore dive sites are pretty plentiful, and the best place for winter diving on Kauai.
SeaSport has the very spacious 48 ft Anela Kai dive boat, excellent even in rough water. Nice fly bridge for travel time and surface intervals, an excellent perch for whale watching when not diving. Friendly captain and crew, safety conscious organization, neat and tidy boat. Captain and DM's all well versed on Hawaiian waters, fish, critters, and dive sites, and love to share this info with the divers. Excellent dive briefings by DM's Ryan, Brownie and Adriana. Boat will take up to 18 divers, but we had between 4 and 8 on each morning. We had a mix of weather - windy, sunny, cloudy, calm, choppy, current some days, none others. Got in four really great drift dives out of the ten dives I did this trip. Water a bit cool this winter, 72-74 degrees, so I used a loaner 5mm and was glad I had it. My 3mm wouldn't have kept me warm. Averaged 40-45 mins on the 90 ft first dive, and 60 min + on the second dive, on nitrox, each morning. Visibility averaged between 40-80 ft.
Multiple sightings: eagle rays, manta rays, large and small octopus, white tip reef sharks, green sea turtles, spotted morays, white mouth morays, green morays, stout moray, dwarf morays, yellow margin moray, lizard fish, sargent major, guardian crab, hairy hermit crab, imperial shrimp, white ghost shrimp, spiny lobster, leaf scorpion fish, arc-eye hawkfish, reticulated butterfly fish, longnose hawkfish in black coral, numerous types of butterfly fish, flatworms, nudibranchs, the list goes on and on. Several topside whale and calf sightings - a real treat. And we could hear the whales singing while underwater, on most dives. One surface interval, two of our group snorkeled with two manta rays.
SeaSport Divers does full day trips to Ni'ihau on Tuesdays and Fridays, May - Sept each season, so I'll be joining them in early June 09 for that adventure. I can't wait!!
SeaSport has the very spacious 48 ft Anela Kai dive boat, excellent even in rough water. Nice fly bridge for travel time and surface intervals, an excellent perch for whale watching when not diving. Friendly captain and crew, safety conscious organization, neat and tidy boat. Captain and DM's all well versed on Hawaiian waters, fish, critters, and dive sites, and love to share this info with the divers. Excellent dive briefings by DM's Ryan, Brownie and Adriana. Boat will take up to 18 divers, but we had between 4 and 8 on each morning. We had a mix of weather - windy, sunny, cloudy, calm, choppy, current some days, none others. Got in four really great drift dives out of the ten dives I did this trip. Water a bit cool this winter, 72-74 degrees, so I used a loaner 5mm and was glad I had it. My 3mm wouldn't have kept me warm. Averaged 40-45 mins on the 90 ft first dive, and 60 min + on the second dive, on nitrox, each morning. Visibility averaged between 40-80 ft.
Multiple sightings: eagle rays, manta rays, large and small octopus, white tip reef sharks, green sea turtles, spotted morays, white mouth morays, green morays, stout moray, dwarf morays, yellow margin moray, lizard fish, sargent major, guardian crab, hairy hermit crab, imperial shrimp, white ghost shrimp, spiny lobster, leaf scorpion fish, arc-eye hawkfish, reticulated butterfly fish, longnose hawkfish in black coral, numerous types of butterfly fish, flatworms, nudibranchs, the list goes on and on. Several topside whale and calf sightings - a real treat. And we could hear the whales singing while underwater, on most dives. One surface interval, two of our group snorkeled with two manta rays.
SeaSport Divers does full day trips to Ni'ihau on Tuesdays and Fridays, May - Sept each season, so I'll be joining them in early June 09 for that adventure. I can't wait!!
