Scuba Dream Time

We took a much needed reprieve from work and headed to the Big Island of Hawaii for some relaxation and fun diving. We love the fact that we can take very short flights and explore the other islands. This trip was a little longer that the one to neighbouring Oahu but sill about 1 hour of total flight time with a short stop in Honolulu airport. We scheduled two dive trips with Jack's Diving Locker on the Kona Coast. They came highly recommended and lived up to every expectation. Highly professional crew, comfortable and clean boats, and vast collective experience of the Kona coast and it's resident creatures. Our first trip was the much talked about night manta dive. We arrived to the dive site late in the afternoon and immediately spotted mantas and dolphins in the area. Everyone diver on board was very excited. And we were not going to be disappointed. For the first dive in the late afternoon we followed our guide, Bruce, around for the first half of the dive. We ins...

Yesterday we had an amazing day for our trip to Ni'ihau. Ocean conditions were perfect for the channel crossing. It was a smooth trip out to Ni'ihau and a unusually smooth ride back from Ni'ihau. Our first dive of the day was at Keyhole. The site gets its name from the shape of the rocks where divers get dropped off. The boat backs into the Keyhole area and drops off divers for a drift dive. Normally the currents are strong and the conditions surging causing the boat to have to make several drops. Yesterday's conditions were so calm that the boat was able to maintain is position long enough to allow all 14 divers to jump off in one pass. We hung on the surface for a minute enjoying the view and allowing divers to regroup. We then descended as one large group to about 40 - 50 feet and head out of the Keyhole cavern. Once we rounded the corner we were present with a very swift current. The current was causing our air bubbles to travel horizontally through the wa...

There another south swell again. It's another big one about 10-12 ft surge. As of yesterday all of our trips were canceled for safety reasons. The swell should subside by Sunday. Maybe by Monday we can get back to the business of diving. I worked a double before the swell hit and was able to do some incredible dives. Before the swell the visibility was pretty good. The best part of the day were the spinner dolphins. During our surface interval, they approached the boat like they do most times. You never tire of looking at the dolphins. They played in our wake and then moved on. By the time we arrived at our second dive site of the morning they came back to greet us. I was the first in the water when I heard one of the divers from the boat call out that we had dolphins off the stern. Luckily I had my video camera so I dropped down a few feet and headed to the. I was lucky to get a few seconds of footage.