Which Islands to Dive?

[TheWizard]

I was hoping to find a Hawaii dive FAQ here, but no.

I'm thinking a two week trip to HI will be good sometime in '08, to allow some diversity in diving. So which of the four major islands should I hit? I could probably decide that myself if I had a one-page synopsis of must-dives, etc. In the absence of that, I'll solicit your personal opinions. Thanks!

 

[SexSea!]

Big Island for the Manta and Shore diving
Maui for Molokini, Backwall, and everything else.
Oahu for the Wrecks
Niihau (off Kauai) is said to be awesome too... 2.5 hour boat ride and only between late spring to early autumn.

If you have two weeks and !go is still around, just island hop for around 80$ round trip.

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

Up in the top sub-forum section of the Ohana index page is some Island/dive site info, under local reference;

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/lo...-information-reviews-hawaiian-dive-sites.html

You may be able to ask better questions after looking at this page.

 

[Scottri]

I have only been lucky enough to dive Maui but it is awesome. I love the back wall of Molokini, Shark Condos on Molokini, Red Hill is a nice shallow dive with a lot of critters. You can usually catch a boat over to Lanai from Maui and dive the Cathedrals. Shore diving is good and very easy to get to on Maui as well. I always stay in Kihei so all of my boat diving has left from the Kihei boat ramp. There are a lot of very good boat ops on the island as well. You can also boat dive from Lahaina with no trouble.

 

[Teamcasa]

I have been diving at Oahu, Kauai and the Big Island. To many tourists at Maui for me. The Big Island gets my vote hands down.

Dave

 

[kidspot]

Just remember that much of the best Big island diving seems to be reported on the Kona side of the island. Maui has a lot of shore diving + Molokini and Oahu has most of the wreck diving... Kauai isn't normally known for it's diving (other than Niihau)

Have fun planning, and let us know when you know where and when you are coming

Aloha, Tim

 

[sea nmf]

One thing I would note: the back wall of Molokini is not always dive-able. I wanted to do it (was there in Feb) and the conditions were such that the operator (Ed Robinson) would not risk it.

The beauty of Maui is that you can do a number of shore dives. You can do that on Oahu, also, but some of the entries, exits are challenging. There is shore diving in Kona as well.