When the sun finally set, we put our wetsuits back on, got our lamps, and jumped into the dark water for our second dive. Bryan was able to get a few photos of them from far away.Īfter about an hour we resurfaced and took a one-hour break in preparation for our next dive, the night dive where we would actually try to attract the manta rays.Īt this time the sun was just starting to set. Right at the end of our dive, several of the divers spotted some manta rays swimming in the distance! It wasn't even nighttime yet, but they were already in the area. I've always loved turtles (grew up with a pet one who's STILL alive!), and this definitely peaked my interested in wanting to see more turtles. Unfortunately, he was sleeping and had his head buried in the reef, so I could only see his tail and the back of his shell. I don't have a photo, but I saw my first honu, or giant green sea turtle. We explored the reef and saw many different types of tropical fish. Because we were relatively newbie divers, our dive leader (who took a group of four) only took us down to around 40 feet. Our first dive was an afternoon dive where we explored the Kona Reef, the same area where we would be watching the manta rays after sunset. Even though this smaller dive boat was arguably more rocky than our boat in Maui, I felt OK. This time, I took seasickness medication and used seabands on this trip, which helped A LOT. I learned from our first couple boat dives in Maui that I get extremely seasick. Basically, if you had to go, your bathroom was the big, blue ocean. Unlike the larger boats that we had used in Maui, the Big Island Divers boat was smaller and did not have a bathroom on board. We went with Big Island Divers, a well respected local dive company that takes out divers in medium sized boats like the one pictured above. It's a beautiful and surreal show watching these huge, gentle giants swim up so close. The light attracts plankton, which in turn attracts the huge manta rays. Divers, equipped with night lamps, dive down to the floor of the ocean about 35 feet down. Once settled at the bottom, all divers point their lights up towards the surface. This is a night dive that is almost more like a show than a real dive. One of the most famous dives you can do in the Big Island is the Manta Ray Dive. We knew we would be diving in a couple hours so we didn't want to eat too much. We only had ~30 hours in Kailua-Kona, but we managed to squeeze in quite a bit!Īfter arriving at the airport in Kailua-Kona in the morning, we headed to our hotel to drop off our luggage before stopping by a poke shack for a quick and delicious lunch. This would save us hours of driving time. We actually arranged our flights so that we would fly into Kailua-Kona (west side) and fly out of Hilo, the airport on the east side of the island. It's a huge island (no surprise!) and most travel guides recommend treating the west side of the island (Kailua-Kona) as a separate destination from Volcano National Park, which is more on the east side of the island. The island of Hawai'i is best known for its gorgeous diving sites, world famous Kona coffee, and the active volcano on the island.
0 kommentar(er)
