While Hawaii may not technically be in the Pacific Northwest, it is a very popular destination for PNW divers looking for a break from the cold, dark waters of the Salish Sea. My wife (Laurie) and I were able to get over to Kona on the big island of Hawaii for a week in February and spent some of that time enjoying diving in the warm(ish) waters.

We have a couple of operators that we regularly dive with while we’re in Kona. On our first day we booked the morning local 2-tank charter with Kona Honu Divers as a nice way to ease into the warm water. As always, their crew was on top of things as we showed up Friday morning. We’ve dove with them enough that we knew several of the dive guides on the boat and had a good time catching up with everyone. Our dive guide for this charter was Kevin and our group included four other more advanced divers. One of the others in our group noticed Laurie’s GUE mask strap and introduced himself as a GUE diver from the Bay Area, so the three of us teamed up for the day’s diving. We headed north out of the harbor to “Windows” for our first dive. It was a nice, relaxing dive with all the normal reef fish we see in Hawaii.

We also saw a couple of sea turtles, including a big guy that was going to town trying to eat some of the coral.

After the first dive we all enjoyed the surface interval as we headed back to the south. The second dive site was “Turtle Heaven” which is right outside the harbor. Some people may complain about it being a “sell out” to dive right outside the harbor, but both “Turtle Heaven” on the north side of the harbor and the three “Honokohau” sites just to the south of the harbor entrance are great sites that offer the chance to see some big creatures like Tiger Sharks (that like to hang out outside the harbor for scraps the fishing boats put in the water) and Eagle Rays (which we have seen when shore diving from Dog/Alua Beach there.) Our luck was not with us for the big creatures on the second dive, but we still had a great dive and saw some huge bait balls without anything feeding on them.

We also saw three frogfish on the second dive, including two hanging out together right at the anchor for the mooring buoy we were attached to.

After the second dive, the ride back to the harbor was nice and short. We got our gear cleaned and packed up since our plan was to shore dive the next day. We also chatted with Sarah Milisen who was training a couple of students on the charter about Kona Honu’s blackwater dive since she is one of the experts on blackwater diving. Laurie has always been a bit leery about the idea of hanging under the boat at night in deep water waiting to see what comes out of the darkness, but Sarah conveyed just what an amazing experience it is, so we agreed to consider doing a blackwater dive on this trip.

After grabbing some lunch we swung by Kona Honu Divers to pick up tanks for shore diving the next day. Our plan was to hit our favorite shore diving site on the island, Puako End-of-Road, which is right up on the Kohala Coast where we normally stay when on the island.

We got up early on Saturday excited to explore the lava rock fingers that make the Puako dive site special but, unfortunately the surf was a bit to high for us to safely enter the water there, so we had to pivot and find another site. We have shore dived a couple of other places on the Big Island on our own, but none of them looked particularly suited for the wave direction and size, so we decided to try diving “Two Step” which is pretty far south of Kailua-Kona. It took us more than an hour to drive down there from Puako, but when we arrived we met some other divers that were getting packed up and they gave us some tips on how to dive the site to augment what Laurie had read online while we were driving down.

The biggest challenge we had at Two Step was getting in and out of the water, not because of the surf, but because of all of the snorkelers that were impatient with how slow we were getting our gear on and maneuvering our cylinders and everything. Once in the water and away from the shallows where the snorkelers were hanging out, it was a really nice dive with a nice reef drop-off covered in flat (plate) coral.

We enjoyed our dive until we had to navigate amongst the snorkelers to leave the water. We rewarded ourselves for our patience with a guava and pineapple smoothie from the local resident who sells them from her front yard (highly recommended.)

As we were driving back up to Kailua-Kona to return our cylinders at Kona Honu, Laurie and I agreed that we would give the Blackwater dive a try, so we signed up while in the shop for the Monday night charter. We made sure to get an early dinner in our condo on Monday before meeting the boat at the boat ramp at Hokonohau Harbor at 6:15 on Monday. We were happy to learn that it was a small group (just two other divers) for the trip and that Sarah was our dive guide.

It was a felt a little weird as our captain, Andy, pointed the small boat straight offshore into the darkness as we left the harbor. It was about 20 minutes ride to chosen point offshore in approximately 5000 feet of water. After checking the wind and current directions, Sarah deployed a sea anchor to help keep the boat from being blown around too much. We each geared up and clipped ourselves to an 8 foot “Jon line” that was attached to a weighted tether line that dropped about 40 feet under the boat. There were firm instructions to not detach ourselves from the jon line unless directed by Andy (or if we saw the boat descending past us.) With that final instruction, we each back-rolled off the boat into the deep water.

The dive was everything that had been promised and more. It was amazing to see jellies, squid, larval fish, and more rising up out of the deep and into our lights. Different invertebrates would shift shapes instantly as we shined out lights on them. The highlight for me was seeing a pelagic seahorse (endemic to Hawaii), but Sarah was most excited seeing a female juvenile nautilus since it was so rare that her husband, Jeff, had not been able to get a photo of one for his definitive book on Blackwater Diving. After an hour in the water, it was time for us to each detach from our line and climb back on board. The excitement everyone felt as we recounted the things we had seen as we headed back to the harbor was intense. I tried taking some still photos on the night dive with my GoPro, but none of them came out particularly well. I’ll have to bring a better camera next time.

Since we had a few days left before our flight home, we decided to book a 2-tank charter with Kohala Divers in Kawaihae for Wednesday morning. We’ve had really good experiences with Kohala Divers since they operate in a part of the island that most other dive companies can’t reach due to the distance from Kailua-Kona, and their staff is phenomenal. Unfortunately this time the swell that had caused us problems trying to dive in Puako on Saturday was an even bigger problem and it was clear Tuesday afternoon that Kohala Divers was going to have to cancel their Wednesday charter. We quickly regrouped and booked the last two seats on Kona Honu’s Wednesday morning charter since there were likely to be sites farther south that a boat could tuck into out of the northwest swell.

When we arrived Wednesday morning, it was confirmed by our captain, John, that we would probably be diving to the south in Pawai Bay to avoid the swell. Kevin was our dive guide again and our first dive site was called “Air Tanks” near the old airport in Kona. The site was a nice lava reef with a big drop off into a sandy area. We saw several eels, but the highlight of the dive was a big Manta Ray coming up the drop off to do a fly-by of us. Laurie saw it first and her squeal of excitement caught my attention, so was I was able to get the GoPro out to take a video.

Our second dive on Wednesday was also in Pawai Bay, but at the opposite side at the “Kawai Wash Rock” site. Like Air Tanks, it was a nice reef with a steep drop-off into the deep. It was a nice, relaxing way to end our diving for the trip. We saw more eels and frogfish. We though we had caught sight of a shark, but it just turned out to be a Milkfish which looks like a shark in a profile view.

In all, it was a very nice trip to Hawaii. We were able to get six dives in, but also didn’t try to dive every day, so we were able to also relax and have some nice down time. It was a nice balance compared to some previous trips where it was all diving, all the time. Given how easy it is to get to Hawaii from Seattle, we will continue to go back at least once a year. Our next trip is already scheduled for August 2025.