Kevin Stewart PADI instructor #188989
One of the great advantages of diving with Kona Honu Divers on the Big Island of Hawaii is the fact that there are over thirty dive sites that they can take you to that are only fifteen or twenty minutes from the harbor so there is not a long ride out to or back from the dive sites. Nobody likes to go for a day of diving and then spend the majority of your time traveling to the dive sites and back from the dive sites especially after your last dive of the day who wants to spend an hour or more traveling back to the harbor when you are now tired and hungry. When you dive with Kona Honu Divers on the Big Island of Hawaii they will take you to two different sites on their morning charters because they have so many sites to choose from. Even if there is a swell in one area chances are there is somewhere where there are dive sites that you will be able to dive because there are so many to choose from and they are all close by. Of course Kona Honu Divers cannot guarantee you will always get new dive sites every day due to weather, swell, unforeseen conditions and so forth but the chances are very very good that they can because of this great variety. In fact if you come to dive with Kona Honu Divers on the Big Island of Hawaii for a week or more chances are you will go to two different dive sites every day that you dive even if it is seven days or even fourteen days. One of the best dive sites, that I have mentioned before is right outside the harbor so maybe five minutes from the dock. It is Nai’a and there can be a lot of action at this dive site so much so that divers tend to request this site over and over. Two of the big draws to the dive site are the high chances of seeing dolphins and dolphins although you usually don’t see both on the same dive. The local spinner dolphin pods of the Big Island of Hawaii often sleep and rest in the small bay where the dive site Nai’a is located so often when you dive there with Kona Honu Divers you will see the dolphins. Sometimes they may be a little active and curious and may even swim by the divers to check them out. As they swim by you can see them looking at you and you can see the intelligence in their eyes. The other big draw for Kona Honu Divers to take divers to the dive site Nai’a is the possibility of the tiger sharks that tend to frequent this area near the harbor because of all the fisherman that dump fish into the ocean on their way into the harbor. This creates a bonus for us divers because it gives us a good chance of seeing this magnificent predators without having to go diving way of shore or in deep waters and there are a number of the tiger sharks that hang out in this area. They are wonderful to see and as long as you keep your distance and do not try to disturb them they seem to avoid the people and actually be a bit afraid of the bubbles that the divers emit from their regulators so rather than having to be worried that the tiger sharks may get too close to the divers the divers need to worry more that the tiger sharks won’t get close enough because of all the bubbles that the divers are creating from breathing. Another really cool dive site less than fifteen minutes from the harbor is Suck-Em-Up which is kind of a funny name but it is very descriptive of the site. What Suck-Em-Up is is a lava tube which is a structure that formed when the lava from the volcano hit the ocean and cooled down creating a kind of cave. This particular lava tube has a whole in the ceiling of the cave at one end of the lava tube rather than being just a closed in tube and as you would expect the lava tube structures are created right at the edge of the land where the waves hit the land so with Suck-Em-Up when the waves come in and go through the lava tube then release through the hole in the top of the tube rather than going straight out the tube it causes a suction up and out through the hole in the ceiling of the lava tube. This is why you want to be sure to follow your guide from Kona Honu Divers when you go through this tube because they will be able to time the waves and swim you through safely so you do not get sucked out the top. This is a challenging but quite thrilling dive to do and your guide from Kona Honu Divers will keep you safe so that it will be a very exciting experience. There are also lots of cool critters to see in the lava tube which is a favorite habitat for things like crabs, shrimp, nudibranchs, pipefish and much more which you Kona Honu Divers dive guide will be able to find for you and show you. As I said there are many many more dive sites to see these are just two. There will be descriptions of the dive sites of Kona Honu Divers on the Big Island of Hawaii on our website so you can check them out and maybe want to pick out some you might want to request to go to if they sound interesting and your crew at Kona Honu Divers on the Big Island of Hawaii will try their best to fulfill your requests. So plan on coming to Kona Honu Divers on the Big Island of Hawii and we will show the beautiful dive sites of our island.
