Dive Review of Kohala Divers in
Hawaii/Big Island, Hawaii

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Kohala Divers, Oct, 2010, by Wayne Joseph, CA, US ( Contributor 13 reports with 11 Helpful votes). Report 5731.
No photos available at this time
Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations	N/A	Food	N/A
Service and Attitude	N/A	Environmental Sensitivity
Dive Operation		Shore Diving	N/A
Snorkeling
Overall Rating
Value for $$	N/A
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	This was our 4th trip to the big island & we wanted to stay in Kohala area & dive this coast. We had arranged 2 boat dives with Kohala Divers & the night manta dive with Dive Makai. The week before we left we received an email from Dive Makai that they were going out of business. So we had to change our dive reservations & went with Big Island Divers. We also arranged a day boat dive with Pacific Rim Divers. These last 2 dive boats leave from Honokohau Harbor in Kona. Kohala Divers is located in Kaiwahae where their boat is docked across the street from their shop. The shop & boat are very nice & well equipped. The boat has all the necessary emergency & first aid gear that is needed. The crew is friendly & very helpful. They troll for fish when going to the dive sites and caught a large ono on one of the trips. The dive guide we had for both boat dives would do a 5 min. briefing then wanted us to stay with her during the dive. We would descend, she would try to find some critters with limited success (the vis was bad due to large swells that were present). We saw a few turtles, eels, wire coral gobies, a long nose hawkfish, & a very tiny bright yellow bubble shell(?) the size of a grain of sand. The only negative was that she moved around faster than any guide I've been with in quite some time. Not enough time to look for other critters. Saw many more yellow tangs than when diving the Kona area & some beautiful coral formations, even when snorkeling off our beach. Big Island Divers also ran a good operation. They were very friendly, helpful, & safe. Their boat was smaller than Kohala Divers & a little cramped. The manta dive is quite an experience that every diver should do. It can be quite a zoo when there are about 20 mantas & 40-50 divers & snorkelers, but still enjoyable. Pacific Rim Divers also has a smaller boat, but they only take 6 divers & there is plenty of space. They are very friendly, helpful, & safe. One of the divers was so seasick he couldn't even do the first dive. After we did the dive they returned to the harbor to drop him and his wife off, then went back out to do the 2nd dive. They run their dives like the old Dive Makai. Patrice has a detailed dive briefing and is good at finding small critters. She moves slow enough to allow all of the divers to look for things. We found octopus, nudibranchs, eels, flame wrasses. We were lucky to see a pod of dolphins swimming around while we were on the bottom. It was very educational as 2 of them showed us how they mate. We found that the vis was better off the Kona coast than Kohala when there are these large swells coming in.
Websites	Kohala Divers
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	501-1000 dives
Where else diving	[Unspecified]
Closest Airport		Getting There
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny, windy, cloudy, dry	Seas	calm, surge
Water Temp	76-°F / 24-°C	Wetsuit Thickness	5
Water Visibility	65-80 Ft/ 20-24 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	?
Enforced diving restrictions	stay with the group
Liveaboard?	no	Nitrox Available?	N/A
What I Saw
Sharks	None	Mantas	Squadrons
Dolphins	Schools	Whale Sharks	None
Turtles	> 2	Whales	None
Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):
Corals		Tropical Fish
Small Critters	N/A	Large Fish	N/A
Large Pelagics	N/A
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter		Boat Facilities
Overall rating for UWP's		Shore Facilities
UW Photo Comments	I prefer it not be left in the camera tank while the boat is moving as that is when I seem to get leaks. But, there was plenty of space for me to store it by the seats. The dive guide moved too fast to find many subjects to shoot.

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Dive Review of Kohala Divers in Hawaii/Big Island, Hawaii

Kohala Divers, Oct, 2010,

Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Overall Rating

Reporter and Travel

Dive Conditions

Dive Policy

What I Saw

Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):

Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Dive Review of Kohala Divers in
Hawaii/Big Island, Hawaii