17 dives in 7 days, a reasonably relaxed pace. 8 boat dives, 9 shore dives. Total of 21.8 hours bottom time. Water temperature consistenly 76-77 with no significant depth dependence. We were comfortable in 3/2 mm full suits. Wonderful wildlife: Diving with spinner dolphins. Manta rays on 4 dives, including a night dive with 12 rays. Tons of moray eels, including several hunting and one tying himself in knots to crush his dinner. Tons of turtles. Great fishlife. Beautiful coral. Lots of crustaceans. Lots of nice nudibranchs. Heard humpback whale song several times. All of our boat diving was with Jack's Diving Locker (JDL). I would recommend them as a great operation with good guides and comfortable, safe boats. For (unguided) shore diving, we rented tanks from JDL. For $10/day, you get a tank with unlimited instant refills (swap empty tank for a full one). They also have (free) maps of shore diving sites. We stayed at the Kona Tiki, a simple hotel on the coast just south of JDL. No phones or TVs in the rooms, perfect. Small rooms are $65/night, large rooms with kitchennette are $95. The full dive log: 4/3/04 2 tank standard morning trip JDL guide Kay Nevin (good guide, although moves a bit fast for my tastes) Site 1: Golden arches Saw a 12 ft manta ray within 10 minutes of hitting the water. He calmly swam away, giving us a good look. Morays: yellow margin swimming free, big viper moray, small stout moary. Nudibranchs: White margin, gold lace (gorgeous!), big varicose phyliddia Tiny (< 1 cm) bright yellow frogfish. A pair of Tinker's butterflyfish at 70 ft! Very shallow for these guys. Many other butters as well. Two leaf scorpionfish in a coral head. One scarlet, one white. Site 2: aquarium Two small whitemouth morays. Many pyramid butterflies. Small octopus in coral hole changing colors and texture. Nice swim through lava tube with 2 eyes and a skylight. Big crab, unid. Spotted shrimp, unid. (harlequin?) Sergeant majors defending deep purple egg patches. Just like garibaldi! 4/3/04 night shore dive Site: King Kamehameha Wall, Kailua Bay Easy beach entry. A little swim around the corner to a safe descent point Sleeping turtle. Could hear humpback whale song! Snake eel. Two undulated morays. Small (3 ") slipper lobster. Many marbled shrimp. Dark phase of rare long-nose butterfly. Oval butterfly. Many other butters in night phases. 4/4/04 2 shore dives Site 1: Honaunau to right Easy 2-step rock entry. Snorkelers paradise. High density of fish. 4 turtles. Got close to 3 of them as they swam by. Many dark phase rare long-nose butters. One with mixed dark and light phases. Many cleaner stations, both juvenile and adult Hawaiian cleaner wrasse. Blue dragon nudibranch. Nice! Frilly body with leafy gills. Pretty stocky hawkfish. Juvenile peacock razorfish (similar to juvenile rockmover). Schools of hawaiian domino damsels, goatfish. Many trumpetfish. Site 2: 4 Mile Marker Really nice cave full of great stuff. In cave: Huge sleeping turtle. White mouth moray. White margin nudibranch. Golden lace nudibranch. Orange cup corals. Beautiful sponges covering walls. Many crabs. Outside cave: Fischia flatform. Unid flatworm floating free. White with pink rim and pink stalks. Stout hawkfish. Many triggerfish, including humuhumunukunukuapuaa. Blue octocoral. 4/5/04 Kayak trip to Kealakekua bay Rented kayaks from Kona Boys. Put dive gear on kayaks and paddled across to ancient canoe landing near Capt. Cook Monument. Shore dived from there. On way over, jumped out of boats to snorkle with a huge group of spinner dolphins. Great! On scuba: Beautiful coral wall. Big patches of plate-and-pillar coral. Nice heads of lobed coral in shallows. Unimpressive fish density. Many trumpetfish in different color phases. Big yellow margin eel sharing a hole with a peacock grouper. After diving, want snorkeling from same spot and say an 18 inch snowflake moray swimming, a white mouth moray, reticulated butterfly (!), and many other butters (oval, ornate, raccoon, 4-spot...) 4/5/04 shore night dive Site: 4 Mile Marker Dusk to night dive. Very lightt surge made the cave pleasant. What a dive! Dove the cave first, then headed out to the center, deeper part of the reef. Hit the shallower reef on way back in. Undulate moray, mostly white with yellow head. Banded moray (rare) hunting and catching a fish. Wow! Small yellow-headed moray in cave. Mustache conger eel just outside cave (2 ft long). Big yellow-headed moray on the deeper part of the reef. Whitemout moray on shallow reef. Small turtle in inlet before cave. Big sleeping turtle in cave (same spot as yesterday). Many many regal and sculptured slipper lobsters. Lots of crab and shrimp. Flat elbow crab (flat white carapace). Jeweled anemone (decorator) crab! Marbled shrimp. Red and white octopus in hole, unid. Huge horned helmet snail (conch). Beautiful 3" cowry. Leopard cone snail. On sand flat between reefs, many snouts of snake eels, either crocodile or speckled. 4/6/04 2 tank advanced boat trip JDL guide Doug Farr (very good guide) Site 1: Coral Gardens Saw a 3 ft baby manta ray at the surface during the boat ride out. Coral garden in deep sand > 100 ft. There saw longfin anthias and bicolor anthias. Speckled butterfly. Morays: small stout, large undulated, medium zebra. 10-12 ft manta towards end of dive. Hung out for a good look. Site 2: LAX Amazing topography. Many arches, including triple arch ala' LAX airport arch. Many canyons (collapsed lava tubes) filled with plate and pillar coral (strangely wrinkled pillars). Several spiny lobsters in LAX arch. Nudibranchs: golden lace, 4 white margin (one laying eggs), Tom Smith's, varicose phyllidia. Several fuchsia flatworms. 2 turtles. 4/6/04 afternoon shore dive Site: Utility Pole 120, Puako Great shore dive with fairly easy entry. 3 ft spotted eagle ray on snorkel out. Great topography. Big arches, nice cave with skylight. Dive along the lava wall edge most of the dive. 9 morays: snowflake (on snorkel out), dwarf in cave (!), zebra, tiger, 3 white mouth, 2 stout. School of >30 raccoon butters! In cave: 2 slipper lobsters, marbled shrimp, solitary and colonial cup corals, redstripe pipefish!. Big, dark leaf scorpionfish. Several fuchsia flatworms. 4/7/04 2 tank dusk/night trip JDL Guide: David Maddux (great guide) Swell prevented us from doing the manta ray night dive sight, so we headed to Kaiwi Pt for 2 dives. Site: Kaiwi pt (both dives) Dive 1: dusk Many morays: many undulated, stout, zebra. Redstripe pipefish. 2 leaf scorpionfish, one red and one dark. Tons of fish. Big schools of goatfish. Saddelback butterfly! 2 hug lined butterflies, at least 1 ft long. Divided flatworm. Very bright green. Heard whalesong on this dive and the next! Dive 2 : night Too many morays to count. Several undulated, stout, zebra. One big undulated (lime green head with mostly white body) caught a big yellow tang which was too big for him to swallow. He struggled with it for a long time, finally resorting to tying himself in a knot and pulling his head, with the fish in his jaws, through the knot. The eel did this several times in order to crush the tang's skeleton, and was finally able to swallow the tang. Wow! Many marbled shrimp out in open. Many slipper lobsters. Red reef lobster, shy in a hole. Huge, (10 inch) spainish dancer nudibranch. Beauty! Drat, out of film! 4/8/04 2 shore dives Site 1: Honaunau Saw many spinner dolphins at surface before entering water. Lots of jumping and spinning. And...a large group (20-40) visited us on our dive! We were at 40-50 ft depth. The group many many passes. One group of 5 really checked us out, with a closest approach of about 20 ft. The dolphin that came closest appeared to be a juvenile in the tow of mom. We could hear the dolphins vocalizing like mad when they were near the surface. Encounter was about 10 minutes long, with a few brief sightings of fast swimming dolphins later. Yes! 2 turtles, one right next to me (inches) at exit point. Had to resist the urge to touch. Small white mouth moray darting between coral heads. Many juvenile and adult hawaiin domino damsels. Site 2: King Kamehameha Wall Heard whale song, really loud at times. Huge extended school (1000s) of goatfish all over the reef. 2 bluefin trevally split the school at one point. 12 tiny domino damsels in coral head in sand. K saw freckled snake eel snouts in sand. K saw flame angel in finger coral!! I missed it :( Divided flatworm. Very dense school of bluestripe snapper. 4 ft eagle ray over sand. Tail at least twice as long as body. 4/9/04 morning shore dive Site: Between Houses 38 and 40 to left, Puako Nice shore dive with fairly easy entry. Somewhat long walk on barely submerged rock would be nasty in much surf, as would the snorkel over shallow rock. Heard the whales again. Lots of turtles. 2 swimming early in the dive. Late in the dive, we found a turtle cleaning station with AT LEAST 8 TURTLES. Swarms of yellow (and other) tangs appeared to clean the turtles. Also saw 2 more turtles in a nice double archway at the end of the dive. 2 big whitemouth morays. Big school of mature domino damsels. Big school of raccoon butterflies. Many bar goatfish. Sailfin surgeonfish. Beautiful coral garden. 4/9/04 2 tank dusk/night trip (less swell this time, so...mantas!) JDL Guide: David Maddux Being the kind of divers that the boat crew likes got us squeezed onto a 2-tank manta trip on our last day. Less swell this time, so we went to the manta site! Site: Garden eel cove (both dives) Dive 1: Dusk Saw 2 mantas at the surface while driving into the cove. 4 mantas swam around/over us during the dive: Lefty, Koie, Maki, unid. Lefty has a deformed left cephalic find that folds up into her mouth instead of making a funnel like it is supposed to. Koie's left cephalic fin is dangling, nearly cut off by some fishing line. Maki is missing both cephalic fins and his tail. Big field of garden eels at 70 ft swaying in the surge. Huge yellowmargin moray. Nearly all white dwarf moray. Tiger moray. Oval and teardrop butters, whitemouth moray near mooring line. Dive 2: night 12 Manta rays feeding!!!! Sat in rocky/sandy area for first half hour to view mantas. This was an absolute madhouse. The rays were flipping, bumping into each other, and bumping into us. Even though I was solidly anchored to the bottom, Maki ray (14 ft, at least 2000 lb) rammed into my forehead and mask, almost knocking my mask off. Keller Laros (other guide) identified all the rays: 7 females: Lefty, Bertha, Miki, Koie, Vicky, Isabel, Rebekah 5 males: Shadow, Sugar Ray, Curly, Cousteau, Maki Keller is VP of Manta Pacific Research Foundation (http://www.mantapacific.org/mantapacific/), which has id photos of the mantas (http://www.mantapacific.org/mantapacific/identification/index.html) Huge circling school of bigeye scad above the manta ray feeding lights. After ray mayhem, we checked out the reef. I broke the JDL no-kill policy by accidentally ingesting some of the plankton/krill swarming my flashlight. 2 lime-headed undulated morays swimming around. Both caught fish while we watched. Could see one fish still alive and wiggling inside a moray. That's what I call rare! Large yellowmargin moray out hunting. Viper moray in coral head. At the end of the dive, 3 mantas came over to us under the boat and played around some more! Did I mention that there were 12 manta rays? Great end to the trip.