As of Jan of this year,(2023) there is only one choice for west-side commercial boat diving:
Oahu Dolphin Divers boat the Souths Seas II out of Waianae (Sea Dreams by Hawaii Nautical and Trident Diving Adventures are both no longer operating on the west side). Underwater Oahu and Hawaii Eco Divers were both diving on that boat prior to 2023, but we have taken the boat direct to the public. The retail 2 tank rate is $269 for a 2-tank dive. Booking through them brings you to us, the
only west-side commercial dive boat.
The only way to access that vessel at a Kama'aina rate is to join the Island Divers Hawaii dive club and get on one of their (our) twice-a-month west-side boat dives. Here is
the link for the schedule. Thanks for making this post. It is a great way for me to "advertise" our dive club.
Commercial operations got shut down by the state on the North Shore this year, so North Shore commercial options are gone (all the legal ones anyway), but you can still explore that on your own, Three Tables and Shark's Cove being the majority favorites. I personally use surfnewsnetwork.com to give good up-to-date swell size information. This time of year (April) you can still get a north swell that would make diving those sites dangerous.
Mike from Underwater Oahu is doing shore dives from the west side. Others may be doing that as well. The choice there is usually Electric Beach.
In the planning stages (I do that) for our club dive on Aug 12th is a dive from Makaha beach where you dive from shore but change tanks on the boat and have lunch. Effectively making that a 2 tank dive that starts and ends at the beach. The boat sits there for about 2 hours on the best part of the dive site. There will be room for about 40 people to participate in that, but only 23 people can be on the boat at any one time. We did that once before, it was a kick in the pants. Fun day. Just FYI, you
can dive Makaha Caverns from shore. Most people that do that don't do it twice, lol, it is a long kick for a single dive.
Hawaii Eco Divers, Surf N Sea, and Bonzai divers used to absolutely pound out shore dives during the summer months on the North Shore. I'm not sure what they will be doing this summer. The industry could probably use a North Shore dive boat out of Haleiwa for the summer. Not it! Actually, if any industry people are reading this and want to give that a run I could lease you a boat to see if you could make a run of it.
