Kauai by Gordon

Kauai, 1999
Author: Gordon

I just got back from four days on Kaua'i, and WOW was it cool!

I dove the south shore with Bubbles Below. Most of my diving has been at Cozumel, so the inevitable Coz-Kaua'i comparison follows.

Viz - not bad, but less than I've been spoiled to. About 50-60 feet, I'd guess. There's a lot more fresh water runoff there.

Temp - high 70's, a little cooler than Coz. I lent my wife my shortie (she dives swimsuit only at Coz), and I used a 5mm full suit from the shop. I was too warm, and the full coverage was unnecessary. Next time she gets her own shortie and I get mine back.

Critters - The first dive (I didn't get the location name, but it's right outside the Port Allen harbor) was a little ho-hum. There was one spectacular starfish about 2 feet across with ~20 arms. The DM spent a lot of the dive dealing with a novice diver's equipment. At the end of the dive, however, she went into a cave and brought out a big female green hawksbill turtle that swam around with us for a while; that was cool. Oh, yeah, there was this huge purple puffer, too. And a big red frogfish. Maybe it wasn't quite so ho-hum after all...

The second dive (a Hawaiian name that means "House of Turtles") was better. 20-30 turtles were all around us the whole dive, and we saw three 4-5 foot white tip sharks in a cave, a beautiful lionfish, some leaf scorpionfish, some white worm colonies, three varieties of tropical shrimp, hordes of big lobsters, and some big hermit crabs. Very nice dive.

The dive operation gets good marks from me. The DM (Linda, also one of the owners) we dove with is a marine biologist, and she had two big binders full of photos of critters that she went through with us before and after every dive, describing and showing us what we had seen and what we were likely to see. They put the boat right onto the dive sites, and there were only 8 divers.

The only thing I will ding them (a little) on is that we were told that they only took out divers with experience of 50 or more dives, but there were two novices aboard (no dives since certification) who demanded a lot of her attention. Not a big deal, really; I dive with divers of all experience levels in Coz all the time, but they made the claim and such was not the case.

Diving in Hawaii is *expensive*! We rented equipment from them (we only had the time for one 2-tanker, so lugging gear was not worth the trouble) other than fins and masks and one wetsuit, and the bill was over US$250! It would have been less than US$100 in Cozumel.

Kaua'i in general - BEAUTIFUL! We took the helicopter tour into the volcano caldera (extinct and green, with 20-30 stupendous waterfalls cascading into it), up the Waimea (sp?) Canyon (rivals the Grand Canyon), and out over the Na Pali Coast (words simply fail me). It's expensive, ~US$140 p/p, but *really* worth it. Ask them to put you in the front seats.

The surf was flat most of the time, but a 4-6 foot swell came up on the north shore the last day, and we got some great boogie boarding in on Hanalei Bay and Rock Quarry Beach. I even got on a longboard for a while, but only managed to make a fool of myself and get quite beaten up. Fun, though. The ahi tuna is everywhere, and very tasty. I didn't get a chance to go fishing, but that's definitely in the plan should I ever go back.

Thanks to my wonderful wife who gave me the trip for my birthday!

Gordon in Austin