Anyone here ever dive the lava tubes in Hawaii? I may be doing my honeymoon there and might try and get myself into one of them... Logistically speaking, how difficult is it to get a cave dive set up out there?
Thanks!
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Anyone here ever dive the lava tubes in Hawaii? I may be doing my honeymoon there and might try and get myself into one of them... Logistically speaking, how difficult is it to get a cave dive set up out there?
Thanks!
I think all that would be necessary would be to overcome the perception of the local dive shops that any visiting diver is an inexperienced OW diver willing to pay immense sums of money to be boated out to nearby spots they could have easily driven to and accessed for free from the beach. where a guide that will take them in a circle they have guided thousands of others over the same path a thousand times before over a beaten path in an otherwise vibrant reef.
When we went we had much better dives once we just grabbed tanks, drove out and jumpped off the coast anywhere. All beaches are publicly availiable by law and if it's too far out to swim too it's too deep to dive. The one "Lava Tube" the shop took us too had about 10' of overhead and didn't qualify as a cave.
On the Big Island the only boat dive we did that would have been nice was the Manta Ray dive - except we had just done a great dive the nite before on our own and had a Mana Ray alone with us in 10' of water for like 40 minutes attracted by our cave light. Put the shop's Manta ray experience to shame.
Not much use for boats on the big island. Maybe out on Oahu or to get out to the crater or a botomless deepwater dive.
I think if you did some research ahead of time you could probably find a lava tube somewhere you can swim to. I would suggest maximizing your shore diving as anywhere you jump in is amazing. I didn't see any shops likely to be interested in any technical diving. I got the impression that more advanced diving might be out of Oahu.
Also http://www.shorediving.com/ was helpful.
If you are sidemount, it is easy, just rent a couple of 80s. You could carry a manifold, and backplate, and rig up doubles the same way. Indepdant doubles would be easier, but you have to remember to switch regs. Don't forget a 2nd preessure gauge :-)
Try calling/emailing a few diveshops, maybe some other cavediver has already done the same thing.
Dive Tek Hawaii is a tech op in Kona near the airport. Dived with them in 2006....great guys. I forgot the cambands for my backplate and the captain loaned me his STA for the week.
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Originally Posted by Jim Holt
Thanks everyone for the information!