Signature Topside Experience

A sunset helicopter tour is the perfect way to experience most, if not all, of Big Island. Depart from the Kona International Airport and fly over gorgeous beaches, lava fields, Kohala Valley and the glowing lava at Mauna Loa, the world’s largest volcano.
paradisecopters.com

Hawaii Island

Everywhere around you off Hawaii Island’s Kona Coast is an education in endemic marine life. Among the fish found nowhere else: flame angelfish, milletseed butterflyfish, psychedelic wrasse — you get the picture. If you’ve come here to find something specific, whether a tiny nudibranch or a humpback whale, you won’t be disappointed, even if you don’t see the object of your desire. That’s how remarkable Hawaiian marine life is.

Case in point: a dive at Nai'a, where the possibility of tiger sharks has my heart thumping.

Aboard Kona Honu Divers’ Honu One, we’re all tingling. Our guide, Kevin Stewart, prepares us for disappointment: “Your best chance to see them is late June through August.”

It’s mid-May, and the sharks are a no-show, so we concentrate on the surfeit of white-margin nudibranchs, moray eels and a lone spotted eagle ray in the sand flats hunting. At our safety stop, a pair of spinner dolphins at the surface zips down to join us. I can hear reg-muffled OMGs as we watch them just as quickly zoom off.

And so it goes off the aptly nicknamed Big Island, the state’s largest island. Every dive is special, including two signature night experiences: a manta ray encounter and Pelagic Magic.

“It doesn’t matter whether you’ve had five dives or 1,000 dives, this is the most unique dive you will ever do,” briefs Jack’s Diving Locker’s Sarah Matye about Pelagic Magic. “We’ll be about 3 miles offshore, with about 5,000 feet of water underneath us. It’s the world’s largest migration, a vertical migration that happens all over the world.”

Matye hasn’t exaggerated. In the dark, soupy water, we find tons of fragile, practically microscopic pelagic animals, including a miniature swordfish or marlin (it’s too tiny to be sure). It’s a not-to be-missed experience. During our day dives, the nonpareil continues.

“They’re so ugly, only a mother could love them,” says divemaster Tara Brooks of Big Island Divers. Brooks is briefing us on Golden Arches and the site’s resident Commerson’s frogfish.

“Frogfish look like a piece of Play-Doh that somebody threw on the reef.” Brooks shows us the photo of an adult Commerson’s in an ID book, and then points to a picture of a juvenile. “They’re bright yellow and stand out really well.”

As we drop down, we find a warty adult Commerson’s, looking a whole lot like Star Wars’ Jabba the Hutt. On one of the arches are two daffodil-yellow babies.

There are high-fives all around, a celebration I see repeated all week long. As one divemaster said of his decision to make Hawaii Island his permanent home,

“Great structure, great fish, great diving.”

bigislanddivers.com, jacksdivinglocker.com, konahonudivers.com

More Diving in Hawaii

• Kauai

• Maui

• Lanai

• Oahu