Diving in Oahu

[JoelW]

Just to start this out, if a person was planning on a diving only trip to Oahu I think that they would be pretty disappointed overall. If the diving is just one of the reasons for going then it isn't too bad. By the way, I am a fish watcher so I judge dives by how good the marine life is.

While I was there I did four dives: 1) Mahi wreck, 2) Makahana reef, 3) Sea Tiger wreck (night dive), 4) Pipeline (night dive).

The Mahi is a 186' minelayer sitting in 92'. The top is at about 70'. The ship is in good condition with some openings put in for penetration. As we dropped to the wreck we passed through a pair of eagle rays that were circling the deck. I ended up with some decent video of the pair. The water temp was a bathtub like 81F. One of the DMs made a comment about the water being cooler than normal. He needs to get out more. The viz was in the 40'-80' range. There were a number of green sea turtles taking a nap on the wreck. The dive was 91' max for 32min.

The Makahana reef was not the most colorful I have have seen. It reminded me of diving in Cancun, with Cancun actually being better for the amount of larger marine life. 46' max for 49 minutes.

Now for the better stuff. If there is time, the Sea Tiger wreck at night is great. It is a 168' ship sunk in 1999. The top is at 80' and the bottom is at 120'. There is some penetration into the holds, engineering, the wheelhouse and some passageways. There are a lot of animals swimming around this wreck at night. I have a piece of video that I don't know that I can show. I was using a 10watt HID light with a video reflector for shooting video on the wreck. The amount of light available is pretty unreal. As I swam up to the stern railing an adult green sea turtle swam up to the same point from the outside and below the stern. The light blinded the turtle and it spooked and turned towards me. The only thing that kept me from getting run over is that the turtle swam into the stern railing, bounced off and then swam away. All of this in the space of a couple of seconds and I have it on video. That turtle scared the bejeezus out of me.
I also have some neat video of morays, moorish idols, trumpet fish and others. 101' max for 27 minutes.

The last dive was on the pipeline. It is an old 3' sewer line that runs about a mile out into the bay and is pretty heavily encrusted with coral. I saw some neat shrimps, nudibranchs, crabs, eels and other marine life. 59' max for 35 minutes.

As far as operators go, I went out with Captain Bruce Dive Charters. The owner, Fritz, has two boats and also reserves spaces on other boats. I did two of the dives on one of his boats and the others (night dives) on a boat owned by Dive Oahu. While Capt Bruce seems to be oriented towards more advanced divers, 80s are standard with 100s rentable, some of the other charters seem more interested in the get them in and get them out mode. The captain of the night diving boat seemed annoyed at the gear I brought along (the light, video, etc.). I was ready and off the boat as fast or faster than anyone else. Fritz also does technical charters for those that are interested. He mentioned that there was some stuff in the 160'+ range that was worth seeing.

Another thing to do on Oahu is to head over to Hanuama Bay for a day of snorkeling. The place is beautiful and the fish just don't care about the snorkelers. It is an old volcano where one side has fallen in and been opened to the see. There is some diving there but humping gear down to the beach would be a bear. It would probably be worth doing once.

On a final note, since noone else in the family dives we all took one of the submarine cruises. In reality, it is probably a better deal than diving. Our two kids got on for free and it was $68 each for the wife and I. The cruise was 50 minutes with a max depth of 112'. It was a fun way to spend a morning.

JoelW

[airdownthere]

Just to fortify Joel's experience- Tracy and I were married in Oahu in Nov. 1999 and had the pleasure of diving with Captain Bruce (Fritz) and I recently referred one of my students to his operation. Our experience then and more recently Mr. Breen's certification only reinforced my position that Fritz runs a high quality operation.