Hanauma Bay, Oahu, HI
Third Hawaii Dive
Next we went to Hanauma Bay, a place we'd read a lot about on the net. It was supposed to be a good dive site. We had driven by there a couple of days earler just to take a look, and the beach had been closed due to Box Jellyfish, which are apparently pretty nasty. They show up sometime after the new moon and say for a couple of days, and while they're there they close down the beach rather than deal with the stings.
Anyway, the beach was open today. We show up and unload the car, and Mike and Gabby (Rebecca's family) went back to town to get some fins for Gabby. We had rented fins for Pam and Chase (My family), but they didn't have any small enough for Gabby, who's 5. We had passed a couple of places they were going to go back and try.
We hauled everything in, and found that there was a $5 charge to get in to the beach, and since it's a nature preserve, we had to watch a movie before we could go down. It was about the history of the beach, and not as much "do this and don't do that" as I expected. Anyway, we finally got to the trolly that would take us down the hill.
We got down, and hoped the dive would be worth the effort we were going through. We got suited up (slowly, trying to give Mike and Gabby time to get back), and went out. There was a long surface swim in fairly shallow water over sand and what looked like lava rocks. And a lot of snorkelers, so the water was pretty churned up with sand. There were two bouys marking a channel through the reef where we could actually go down and start the dive. Plus there was lost of surge, so the going wasn't steady. Swim like mad for a few seconds and go nothwere, then zoom along for a few seconds. Fun! But it did make me think about the swim back. If it was the same (and I had no reason to think it wouldn't be), we'd need to make sure we had enough air to get through it. And strength, we wouldn't want to be too worn out.
When we got out there and started down, the water didn't clear up all that much. We found the transpacific phone cables that are no longer used but still there, and followed them out a while, but there wasn't that much to see. It wasn't a BAD dive, just not exciting, not that many fish, lots of coral but nothing really that wonderful.
We hit a spot where the cable went underground, and turned to go get a closer look at a reef. We must have hit an upcurrent or something, because we both started up at that point and made it to the surface. Not in a dangerous way, but in a definite "you're going up" way. Neither of us could really stop the ascent. We got up, and decided that it wasn't that much of a dive, and we should head back in anyway so we could get through the surge with enough air.
We came back in and got a snorkeling report from Pam and Chase: not that great. They had had to go out a ways to see anything - about to the reef, I think - and had the same experience we did: not that great. Rebecca called Mike, and they were all the way back in Honolulu looking for fins, so she told them not to bother hurrying cuz it wasn't worth it. They did come out and pick us up, though.
The picture of Hanauma Bay is from Google Earth
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