Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep

Call Me Kona
There are a few rules that are immutable. Water flows downhill. Time and tide wait for no man. And eventually all divers make their way to the magic kingdom of Kona. Even though the nondiving world might call this youthful and fiery volcanic patch of geography the Big Island of Hawaii, anyone who’s ever dived here, or even donned a mask and taken a gander underwater, simply refers to this entire swath of land and sea as Kona. Hawaiian spiritual power, mana, flows through the waters off the Kona Coast and wraps itself around divers like an enchanted cloak. Divers come and come again because the place constantly exceeds itself and the dives all have that one element that keeps divers hungry: unpredictability. And more than 30 percent of everything you see you’ll only encounter here.

Many of my favorite days of diving have taken place off Kona. One memorable and quite typical day started off with a short hop on one of PADI 5-Star IDC Jack’s Diving Locker’s boats to the Naked Lady. There’s a real naked lady associated with this sailboat wreck, which sits right in Kona Harbor, but I’ll leave that tale to the divemasters. The wreck itself sits intact like a lonely outpost on the sand. Bluestripe snapper (ta’ape) and Moorish idols (kihi-kihi) roam the wreck in packs, and shrimp, 7-11 crabs and a snowflake moray eel (puhikapa) have found hideouts from which they warily peek out into a blue-veiled world. Like most of Kona, the water’s so clear you can look up from the seafloor at 110 feet and see the dive-boat captain leaning over the rail and drinking coffee.

Between dives, all boat captains can take you into Kona’s badlands, the deep void of the open ocean — but it’s nothing like a void. I’ve seen pods of pilot whales followed by oceanic whitetip sharks and aggregations of dolphins. Spinner dolphins will often display their SeaWorld-like high-flying antics. November through March, humpback whales migrate here with their  curious calves, and the ocean comes alive with their great leaps and haunting whalesong.

On this dive, dozens of pilot whales seemed on the move. We jumped into the water as they passed — there’s no real way to describe their graceful, unhurried movements. Out there in the bottomless sea, the shafts of sunlight speared down to an ineffable vanishing point and moved in erratic jolts as if passing through a prism rocking on the surface. The effect is unforgettable.

With the surface interval done, I moved over to PADI dive center Kona Honu Divers and ventured out to Turtle Pinnacle, a way station and cleaning depot for passing green sea turtles and hawksbill turtles (honu). Here, we all watched as yellow (lau’ipala) and convict (manini) tangs scoured the shells and skin of sea turtles, which clearly found the grooming blissful — they lined up for the pleasure.

That night, I indulged in one of my favorite dives in the world with PADI Gold Palm Kona Coast Divers: the manta night dive, which takes place in the otherwise nondescript Garden Eel Cove. The manta night dive is worth the flight from any lonely corner of the world.

Here, we gathered on the seafloor around a set of powerful lights pointing upward. The lights attracted zillions of tiny critters. In a scene straight from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, we all watched in mouth-agape awe as massive manta rays (hahalua) plunged through the light, gulping huge mouthfuls of our manmade buffet. We counted eight that night.

Despite their size, their ballet was delicate and elegant. They swooped in, just brushing our heads. They came at me straight on, and got so close it looked as if I might get sucked into a massive maw. At the last millimeter, they arced upward and curled around for more. Each dive with these incredible creatures becomes an indelible and unforgettable memory. I can replay in my head almost every moment.

That’s Kona: an island of otherworldly lava landscapes, lush forests, snow-capped mountains and some of the most alluring and capricious underwater terrain on the planet.

Hamakua Me!
Want to try your luck diving the Hamakua Coast? Or just have the ultimate diving holiday along the Kohala Coast? Anyone with the time can follow the footsteps of our intrepid blue-water adventurers: The Sunseeker is available to anyone who wants to charter her. Paul Warren, the captain and co-owner, knows these waters intimately, cooks like a chef (especially with fresh-caught fish on the grill) and can tell stories until the cows come home. The lux Sunseeker itself has hosted a long list of Hollywood and business celebrities whose discerning tastes don’t need to be elaborated upon. Suffice it to say that the boat and the diving along this coast are superior treats.

For more information, go to www.divesail.com.

As the official publication of the PADI Diving Society, Sport Diver is the magazine divers turn to each month to find out what’s going on in their world. Sport Diver is the ultimate source for up to date information on dive culture, equipment, travel, training and PADI Diving Society activities.

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