Which Dive Shop? Honolulu

[JBFG]

I'm going to the military base in oahu this March and I will stay 1 day in honolulu. I would love to get 3-4 dives in on that day.

Any shop recommendations or sites that I should asked for?
I will also need to rent some gear as I'm restricted to what I can bring.

Green Dolphin Dive Shop is 4 minutes walk from where I'm staying.
Rainbow Scuba is 12 minutes
Wakiki Diving center is 20 minutes.


Thank in advance!

 

[fishb0y]

THE military base? There's about 10 of them... which one specifically??

 

[JBFG]

oops. I'm staying in Honolulu for 1 day, where I want to dive from and than I'm going to Schofield Barracks

 

[Dr. Lecter]

Call Gabe at Kaimana Divers or Andrew/Randall at Hawaiian Diving Adventures, they'll pick you up and drop you off from wherever you are in Honolulu.

 

[stuartv]

I am also researching this same question for a trip in March. One of my college buddies is from there (and moved back after college) so I asked him and he asked his cousin, who is a diver. His cousin also recommended Gabe or Kevin at Kaimana, or Jeff at Rainbow Scuba.

I asked about Island Divers as they look to be a big operation and cheap prices. The cousin's response was "They lose divers. Im not a fan. Seriously, ID is not a good company I would recommend to a friend."

I'm encouraged to see that Dr. Lecter also recommends Kaimana.

---------- Post added February 13th, 2015 at 04:22 PM ----------

ps. and I *think* Gabe at Kaimana is Scottitheduck here on SB?

 

[Dr. Lecter]

scottitheduck is Gabe, yeah.

ID is sub-optimal for reasons other than losing divers, which can happen to the best ops; mainly, they're more of a cattleboat operation and a number of locals seem to find fault with the attitude of ID's owner. Personally, I find their aggressive pushing of overpriced and barely substantive training and gear to local military kids with VA/GI bill benefits burning a hole in their pockets pretty disgusting...but the libertarian in me says whatever makes all parties happy.

ID does run some pretty good regular trips you might have a harder time nailing down a smaller op on (like three tanker wreck trips where you know in advance you'll get at least two deeper wreck dives in). And while I'm not a fan of them as a whole, some of their DMs/instructors that been out with were really great. I would recommend ID over Ocean Legends any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

 

[JBFG]

thanx a lot for the advises.

what about reef pirates? what's the load down on them?

 

[Dr. Lecter]

I hated them: found Sean to be an *******, the captain appeared semi-consious, they failed to have spare tank o-rings on board and I'd have missed a dive if I hadn't brought some of my own, and out of the two DMs I remember one was great while the other one was a bitch above water and on a sprint under it. Re: the **** DM, viz sucked that day because we were shallow both dives due to heavyish (for Hawaii) seas and I spent most of my two dives coming up to about 20' to track her bubbles and then drop back down to tell the rest of the group which way she'd gone--she was literally out of sight most of the dive. We all got back on the boat when she decided the dive was over; the guy with the lowest tank pressure still had 1200psi+.

To be fair, however, Gabe knows that op and owner much better than I do and he thinks Sean is a stand-up guy with a solid operation. So there's that. But unless you want to limit yourself to Hawaii Kai - which has awesome sites nearby, but which no local dive op visits with tourists with any kind of certainty because they're dives along the sheer wall between Hawaii Kai and Hanauma Bay and everyone here uses the clueless tourist diver metric of go/no-go conditions - I wouldn't bother. Check their website though, maybe they're offering trips up around Honolulu now. I also haven't dove with them since my first trip out to Hawaii in December 2011.

 

[akdeepdiver]

I will put out another recomendation for kamaina divers and Hawaiian diving adventures. Both are top notch dive ops.

 

[JBFG]

Sounds like a no brainer in this case. I'll contact Gabe.

thanx a lot!