Northwest Dive Club

Yesterday I finally made it down south to dive a site called Two Step. I hadn't been here since 2005. This is the premier dive spot where every single person goes to shore dive when they come to the Big Island. More than anything it is maybe the best snorkel spot on the whole island for tourists. In fact yesterday the place was lousy with them. Bad for parking and annoying to get in and out of the water with so many sunburnt people from the midwest splashing around in a near drowning snorkel experience. The crowd had a couple benefits. First were the many sunbathers (ahem) and the other were the fantastic questions from people.

I didn't witness a few of these but the last two days at Two Step saw the following queries:

• While pointing to a rebreather: "Wow is that nitrox? I've never seen nitrox before!" (You bet your ass this is the best looking nitrox you've ever seen)
• "Why are your fins all black?"
• "What's the middle tank for?" (She was given a full explanation on what a scrubber, o2, and diluent was) "OH Neat!"

The usual "Are you going scuba diving?" "How far do you go?" "Is that stuff heavy?" were also in full force.

Two Step is so named for the two naturally forming steps in the lava along the shore. It makes for easy entry and exit for most folks. This popular spot is right next to Pu'uhonua o Honaunau (Place of Refuge) which is national park with ancient Hawaiian ruins. I'm not huge on touristy historical places, but this is maybe the coolest tourist spot on the island that isn't actively spewing lava. The deal with this temple and the surrounding grounds is that if you broke any forbidden Hawaiian law (kapu) and you were able to reach the temple at Honaunau you would be absolved of your wrong doings by a few nice priest type bruddahs. Of course you'd have an army of pissed off Hawaiians chasing you on the way there. A serious game of tag with a holy homebase.

I find the diving here to be a little boring compared to other places. You really have to travel quite a ways to see any interesting structure. And I've become a structure addict. There is a good sized reef in 5-15 feet of water along the shore. Then a long coral covered slope that goes down to about 70 to the sand. Traveling along the bottom of the slope at the sand south leads to about 100 or so. Beyond that are a few other reefs at technical depths.

The three other folks I was with were all in a rebreather. I was the only noisy OC person. We planned for a shade under 2 hrs of bottom time with max of 90 feet. I carried my stage full of 32 just in case we wanted to cruise around a little longer but I didn't need it. We stayed shallow enough toward the end of the dive that I managed to squeak out just a hair over 2 hours. Even with a wool lined hooded vest under my busted up 3mm I was getting cold toward the end of the dive.

Of all the dives I've done recently this was one of the most relaxing. I real vacation from my brain. It helps to be diving with people you can trust and that are all on the same team minded page. I didn't see much interesting under water except for some very rare longfin anthias (which we knew were there). I was pretty psyched to be in some really great viz for once. Puako has been super stirred up lately. I guess it's that time of year. I hear that the viz wasn't as great as it could be but I was pretty psyched.

I took a bunch of photos for heck of it knowing that without a strobe they'd basically suck. It was still fun to document the dive even tho I won't be entering my pics in any contents. Pretty much none of the photos of fish came out but that's cool. I've got some video I'll whip together that is more interesting. Once the other shutterbug sends me the photos she took (with her death star) I'll post those as well. I think there are some really dumb photos of me grinning like a cheshire cat.

Gerard near the cinder block ALOHA:


Fishy!


Cruising:


Oh yeah.. I have a light with me:


This is the only photo of the entry that came out. You can sorta make out a guy in a rebreather sweating his ass of waiting for the snorkelers to get out of the way.


Wild blue over yonder:


I thought it was a girl in a bikini... but I think I'm wrong. This was taken from about 70 feet down:


Click click flash flash:


Rolling hills of coral on lava:


I'll post the vid when I get some more time in front of my computer to edit it.

Aloha hard,

-Eric

Whetting my appetite for being there! See you in a few weeks!

Great report, dude.

I really need to schedule a trip there

That's byoo-tee-ful! I want to dive there! Great trip report, Eric!

I am going in August. Looking forward to diving there!

Man I wanna dive Hawaii!

That desire for that second trip to the Islands is getting stronger by the minute.

A few mins of very blue point and shoot video footage from this dive...

[vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/8549662[/vimeo]

Love the site. Glad the anthias are still there. Saw them in October.

Bravo Eric :smt038

I wonder if the Moray's ever get lost in the Coral caves?

Dove there shortly after getting my OW cert.. Loved it.
Diving was very new to me and I was thrilled to have the great vis and warm blue water to dive in.
Where I first spotted sea grapes.

When in Kona you MUST do the night dive with the Mantas... an experience not to be missed.

Two step is one of my favorite dives on the island day or night!
very nice write up and excellent photos!!!

Thanks

Cold_H2O wrote:When in Kona you MUST do the night dive with the Mantas... an experience not to be missed.

Mantas suck. They're ugly too. Totally overrated. Don't bother diving with them if you come here. And certainly don't wear an X1 near them or you'll find yourself totally molested the whole dive. To heck with manta rays and their stupid face.

[vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/6509484[/vimeo]

-Eric

Sweet looks like great time.

Glad your X1 survived the attack. I thought it was a gonner.

Looks like you had fun there. Anytime in the water is good. I dove there a couple of days after Puako in Nov. I still have pictures I need to post. I still enjoy Puako better than two step, I think I like the structure and swim throughs better. Still it is hard to compare as they are totally diff. type of site.
Mahalo, Doug

I remember that spot, we found it accidentally after visiting that national park. It was a good place to dive, though I liked Kealakekua Bay better, the spot near Cook memorial plaque. Exceptional corals, tons of fish and no one swimming around.

By the way, what was the depth near 'Aloha' sign on the bottom?

--Vlad

Eric,

Keep up the nice reports. I would love to dive CC someday. I have it on my ever growing bucket list.

vlad wrote:I remember that spot, we found it accidentally after visiting that national park. It was a good place to dive, though I liked Kealakekua Bay better, the spot near Cook memorial plaque. Exceptional corals, tons of fish and no one swimming around.

By the way, what was the depth near 'Aloha' sign on the bottom?

--Vlad

Yeah Kealakekua has days too where the crowds are a little much to take. Mostly with freedivers and especially in the southern part of the bay near Napoopoo (yes really) Parts of those reefs are generally a little healthier because it is harder to get to than Two Step. I may be mistaken but Kealakekua bay is a park and may have more fishing restrictions than keoneele where Two Step is. I still find it a little boring down there (especially Ke'ei between Captain Cook and Honaunau) because I'm so spoiled by the cool structure up along the Kohala coast. Of course the viz is always better in that area than Puako.

Oh and the Aloha concrete block sign is in about 30 feet in a flat spot before it slopes down to about 80. The other cinder blocks are further south in about 90 feet and often say different things. I couldn't make out what they spelled when I was there. I really wanted to spell FFFFFFUUUUUU but who has the time for that sort of humor?

Right now the Big Island is being slammed by some of the biggest surf they've seen in years. We don't get the big wave stuff that Oahu and Maui get. Typically by the time it makes it way here it's half the size and 12 hours later. So if we're getting 15-20 ft waves Oahu sees 40 foot waves. that's nuts. The well is more westerly than ever and it's messing up all the western beaches. Many of them are closed. It would suck to be on vacation here this week and want to go to the beach. Luckily there's enough to do besides beaches but still... I'd be pissed. There's no way I'm shore diving until later next week. Even when the surge dies down the viz is totally jacked up. Bummer.

-Eric

Sockmonkey wrote: Even when the surge dies down the viz is totally jacked up. Bummer.

-Eric

Ya, so does that mean the vis is 20 foot instead of bajillion foot?

Diver Doug wrote:

Sockmonkey wrote: Even when the surge dies down the viz is totally jacked up. Bummer.

-Eric

Ya, so does that mean the vis is 20 foot instead of bajillion foot?

Ha.. jerk!. It wasn't that great in Puako when you were here if you remember.

It's like like 0-5 ft and totally surgy with waves breaking such that entry is impossible. I wish I had taken a picture of the normally calm Paniau the other day. It looks like "a white water rafting spot" to quote a dive buddy.

-Eric

OK, I guess it's envy.
Doug

Sockmonkey wrote:
...Right now the Big Island is being slammed by some of the biggest surf they've seen in years. We don't get the big wave stuff that Oahu and Maui get. Typically by the time it makes it way here it's half the size and 12 hours later. So if we're getting 15-20 ft waves Oahu sees 40 foot waves. that's nuts. The well is more westerly than ever and it's messing up all the western beaches. Many of them are closed. It would suck to be on vacation here this week and want to go to the beach. Luckily there's enough to do besides beaches but still... I'd be pissed. There's no way I'm shore diving until later next week. Even when the surge dies down the viz is totally jacked up. Bummer.

-Eric

I was talking to the Dive Op I'll be mainly using while on Oahu. They said for the second straight winter they are having abysmal dive conditions. Lots of rain. wind and high surf.

Last Jan when I was there even on the Leeward side there was so much surge that even the deep dives had to be canceled and on a couple of occasions the boat couldn't get out of the harbor. On the North Shore they had to cancel a Pro Surfboard competition. Hopefully, it won't get that way while I'm there. But, it is worth noting that they are getting hammered both by a poor economy and the weather. Bummer.


Added: Just in case it is as bad as I was told I'm right now ripping more CDs for my iPods. At least I'll be warm and have my music.