A diver’s paradise

The Big Island
The ancestral home of Pele, the Hawaiian goddess of volcanoes, the Big Island teems with life. It also has 12 of the world’s 16 climate zones within its boundaries, so every corner and turn of this island is unique. This diversity has seeped into the waters that surround its shores. A virtual dive town, Kailua-Kona, on the island’s western shore, is crowded with dive flags – and for good reason. Just offshore, incredibly clear water harbors a wild variety of underwater experiences.

From January through March, pods of humpback whales come to give birth off these shores, their songs providing an enchanting soundtrack to every dive adventure. In the open water within sight of shore, pilot whales are frequently seen, often followed by oceanic whitetip sharks. Huge aggregations of dolphins fill the waters, making surface intervals spectacular with their aerial acrobatics.

Close to shore, the dive sites that dot the area have become world-famous. At Garden Eel Cove, massive manta rays come in at night to feed on tiny krill and other organisms attracted to lights set on the sea floor. It’s a world-class site, with an experience straight from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. City of Refuge and Turtle Pinnacle attract green sea turtles by the dozens to their cleaning stations, and after a good cleaning these turtles will often pull themselves ashore for a nap.

The lava substrate has riddled the shoreline with underwater caverns and arches in which you’ll find nurse sharks, legions of squirrelfish and every kind of ray of light imaginable. Sequestered in the nooks and crannies of the dive sites, you’ll find brightly colored frogfish, dragon, zebra, whitemouth and yellowmargin morays, and fluttering extravagances of endemic milletseed butterfly fish. There’s even an extremely photogenic wreck, the Naked Lady, right in the Kona harbor.

Ty Sawyer / Sport Diver

For a thrilling treat, head out at night for an open water drift dive. You’ll hook onto a floating downline and encounter some of the most otherworldly inhabitants of the sea. Larval marine creatures along with deep- water denizens come up to the surface at night to feed and get eaten. Almost every speck you’ll see is alive and, upon close inspection, more alien-like than anything else you’re ever likely to see in the sea.

Spectacular diving also can be had along the mostly uninhabited Kohala Coast, just  northwest of Kona, famous for its pristine hard coral gardens and lava formations, massive turtles and abundance of whitetip reef sharks, as well as its blissful lack of crowds.

Garden Isle
Known as the Garden Isle, Kauai should change its name to Hollywood’s Preferred Backlot. It seems every inch of this lush island has appeared in a TV show or movie. Perhaps its two most famous natural features are the indescribable and awe-inspiring

Slideshow   Polynesian paradise The Hawaiian Islands are the perfect vacation destination for travelers of all types. more photos

Na Pali Coast and the spectacular Waimea Canyon. In between are about a zillion waterfalls and the wettest spot on earth, Mount Waialeale. With some of the most memorable scenery on the planet, it’s a mecca for hikers, mountain bikers, producers, adventurous types and, of course, divers.

The holy grail of diving in Hawaii, about a 45-minute boat ride away, comes with the menacing moniker the “Forbidden Island,” Ni’ihau. At sites like Ni’ihau Arches and Lehua Rock, divers frequently encounter endangered monk seals, eagle rays and blacktip reef sharks, as well as a busy metropolis of marinelife, from huge schools of pennant, pyramid and milletseed butterflyfish to hawkfish, octopus and even rare morwongs.

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