1. MANTA NIGHT DIVE: The diver with the best light gets the most love at this nightly manta rodeo, when mantas come to feed on plankton attracted to your rays. Up to 20 mantas put on a whirling dervish of a good time while divers kneel and snorkelers hover.
2. PELAGIC MAGIC For curiosity seekers, it’s a dive like no other. Hang from a 40-foot line under a boat parked over 3,000 feet of black water, and see what oddities of the deep come up to greet you.
3. HUMPBACK, PILOT, BEAKED, SPERM The Big Island’s Kona Coast is Whale Central in the winter months. For your best chance of almost-continuous sightings, and maybe even a snorkel encounter. A live aboard like Kona Aggressor II is the way to go.
4. HELICOPTOR TOURS To really kick up your view of the Big Island, take to the air with a helicopter tour that can show you island buzz much of the island in just a couple of hours. It’s an unbeatable way to appreciate the Big Island’s active volcanoes, lush valleys and plunging coastal waterfalls.
5. LAND OF BUTTERS If you’re a fish-ID fanatic, the Big Island is endlessly rewarding. Butterfly fish alone are a great example: There are dozens of types here, all endemic or rare, yet relatively easy to distinguish, from pyramid to ornate to fourspot, tinker’s, multiband and more.
6. HAWAII VOLCANOES NATIONAL PARK Hawaii is still growing, literally: Volcanoes added 543 acres to the Big Island between 1983 and 2002. Visit the 500-square-mile national park to pay a visit to Kilauea and Mauna Loa — both active — the latter the most massive mountain on Earth, reaching 56,000 feet from the seabed.
7. KONA BREWING CO. Longboard Island Lager and Pipeline Porter are sold throughout the U.S., but you can go straight to the source with a tour of a Kona brewery.
8. LAVA TUBES Another gift of Pele, goddess of volcanoes: misshapen “tubes” that form when the outside of an underwater lava flow cools faster than its still-flowing in- nards. For divers they create a playground where crabs, lobster and cowries dwell.
9. AU AU CRATER As soon as your boat pulls up next to the dramatic V-shaped bowl that exposes an ancient landslide — one that extends far underwater —you know you are in a special spot. Below the waves, the colorful biomass is as spectacular as the topography, with humpback and pilot whales often just out of sight but not out of hearing. Hawaii is still growing, literally: Volcanoes added 543 acres to the Big Island between 1983 and 2002. Visit the 500-square-mile national park to pay a visit to Kilauea and Mauna Loa — both active — the latter the most massive mountain on Earth, reaching 56,000 feet from the seabed.
10. KILLER COFFEE Kona is rightly famous for its coffee. Kona Coffee Café is an excellent place to get educated over a great cup o’ joe — you also can tour many of the region’s hundreds of coffee farms.
