Diving on the Big Island

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Though the Big Island doesnt have the colorful coral many sites in the Carribbean does, the fish life here is rich and many species are unique to the Hawaiian Islands.  Most boat rides to the dive sites are 20 minutes or less and there are many sites accessible by shore.  Great information on Big Island shore diving can be found here.

I was still a little tired from my long journey from the east coast on Friday so Saturday was spent relaxing.  We decided that we would head down to Place of Refuge at Honaunau Bay on Sunday to do a couple of shore dives.  We rented tanks from Jacks Diving Locker.  They even have maps of the dive site so you can really plan your dive.  Our first dive we went out past the boat channel to around 80 feet where there was plate coral.  Here we found bicolor anthias.  We decided to stay shallower on the second dive and swam with several species of butterfly fish, humuhumunukumukuapuaa (love these guys!), tangs, bannerfish, trumpetfish and puffers.

The mantas swooped, barrel rolled, buzzed and bumped into my head (more than once)!!!

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We knew we wanted to the Manta Ray night dive.  We had done this on our visit 3 years ago and did not see a single manta.  I wanted to try this again.  We booked this for Monday night with Kona Honu Divers.  Well I'm happy to say they didnt disappoint this time...  One the first dive we were given an orientation to the site - where we would go for the manta portion of the dive and then got a tour of the "reef".  At around 65ft there was a large sand patch of garden eels - hence the name of the site - Garden Eel Cove.  While checking out the garden eel, we looked out into the blue and guess who showed up...  Mr. Manta Ray with 2 of his friends!!!!  This was sooo great as it wasnt even the actually Manta ray dive yet!!!!

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When night fell we jumped into the water in 3 groups.  Ours was first.  We hadnt even hit the campfire (area where lights had been placed on the bottom to attract plankton for the mantas) and there were mantas all over the place.  I knelt on some rocks in about 40ft of water, held my light up and just looked.  The mantas swooped, barrel rolled, buzzed and bumped into my head (more than once)!!!  They were truly amazing!!!!  Michael was there snapping off photo after photo.  They were so big his 12mm wide angle lens couldnt capture the whole image at times.  It was definitely an experience I'll never forget!

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We decided to take Tuesday off from diving due to Flossie - though the ocean remained flat calm as Flossie veered away from the island. We booked a two tank dive on Wednesday with Jacks Diving Locker.

Our first dive on Wednesday was site called Suck em Up.  These are lava tubes and is quite surgy - hence the name.  Lots of caverns and swim thrus that were alot of fun to navigate through.  We saw humu's, racoon butterflyfish, ornate butterflyfish and bannerfish...  We did come across a white tip shark in one of the caves.  He was pretty much sound asleep.

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The second site was Turtle Heaven.  This site is just outside the harbor and is known for tiger sharks.  None showed up.  We did have one turtle show up - a small, shy female.  Again, we saw alot of fish but what stood out in particular was a flame angelfish in the coral...  Of course Michael wasnt around with the camera so there is no physical evidence!

For our last day of diving we opted to go shore diving up north.  We rented our tanks from Kohala Divers.  We knew we wanted to dive at Puako and were going to dive Village End.  The girl at the shop told us about another spot - House Lot 38 so we thought we'd do this for our second dive.

We went out to Village End - it was a pretty site, both topside and below.   There was a lava pool that you could don your fins in.  It was a little rocky and the entry wasnt easy, but it wasnt awful either.  Here there were lots of schooling fish.  We saw reticulated butterflyfish, raccoon butterflyfish (in large numbers), yellow tangs, orange spined tangs, long nose hawfish, and parrotfish.  At one point I saw a grey reef shark come in to a sandy area - right in front of Michael...  He skimmed the sand and went into a cave (presumably to sleep).  When I mentioned this to Michael in between dives he said he NEVER saw him!  I couldnt believe it - he was right there!!!!

It took a little effort but in between #38 & #40 theres a public access to a small beach for the dive site called House Lot 38.  The houses were beautiful and a subsequent check online showed #40 rents for a mere $6000 per week - and that doesnt include tax and cleaning fee!!!!  This area is known for its turtles and we definitely saw turtles in the surf, on the beach and on the rocks.  We did see the usual fish but we also found a frogfish...  And Michael was shooting wide angle so we didnt really get the greatest of pictures!!!

The diving definitely did not disappoint - and I look forward to my next trip to the Big Island and more diving!