This is a collection of my blog entries and experiences with diving.
You can find all the pictures I've taken here, and read below for recountings of my more recent trips:
Looks like I didn't plan the diving part of the Kauai trip enough, and trusted the first result I found on Google, when in fact I had notes from 15 years ago of not so good experience with the company that seems to have been the same back then. This time around, without telling a very long story again, I'm putting those clear notes for myself and others to make sure I never mistakenly go diving with them again:
the boat was way too small and had no room for gear
the crew was not geared towards advanced divers and were perfectly fine ending a 45 to 60mn dive after 15mn because one beginner diver was running out of air, penalizing everyone else (they didn't care)
Nick, the passive aggressive lying boat driver I got the first day, ended up behaving like a complete ass, and when I had to leave and go to another company, Fathom Five, that "wonderful gentleman" felt it was his duty to call them and badmouth me (thankfully they took my word for it that he was full of shit, and my diving with them was oh so much better)
Dive Kauai, continued their poor performance by giving 3mm wetsuits in 24C water when clearly 5mm plus is needed for most people unless they have a good amount of body fat. I had to get 2 wetsuits from them and put them together, which was uncomfortable
Multiple dives were ruined because of the complete beginners they mixed with me, including those 2 who were so unprepared that their mask didn't work, and then they were unable to go to the bottom (10m) and cancelled the dive for everyone. What a mess!
*Day1-104*
I mean beginners should be allowed to dive, but Dive Kauai sucks at handing them along with non beginners, which makes them a very poor choice for advanced divers. Of course they failed to admit that when I called and explicitely enquired about it, being happier to take my money at the expensive of a near guaranteed bad experience, but just for harboring Nick, the passive aggressive lying boat driver, that's a definitely a reason not to go with them as long as he works there.
Day1: 2 Boat Dives and 4 shore gives (downgraded to 2) with Dive Kauai
Yeah, so with that unfortunate intro aside, the diving in Kauai was what I remembered, not bad compared to many places, but probably not the best in Hawaii, Maui still remaining the best. But Kauai wins for the many many turtles, that part is definitely amazing:
cleaning station for turtles, there were 6 or 7 sleeping there
Afternoon was supposed to have 2 shore dives and 2 night dives, but the complete beginners I was paired with ruined the first dive, and then the guide said he didn't think night dives would be so good due to silt (that, he may have been correct on). Diving from the jetty was not super easy, kind of rocky and not easy to navigate, but the turtles were happy to come up for a rest:
Day2: 2 Boat Dives with Dive Kauai
Day 2, I went back on the Dive Kauai Boat, thankfully the other divers were more experienced, but Nick still found new reasons to be unhappy with me, and made sure to tell me on the way out that I could not bring my camera bag on the boat the next day because it would be full, lovely... That said he fixed the issue a few hours later by saying got knows what about me so that he would not be allowed on "his" boat the next day (not his boat of course). The 2 morning dives were decent:
Oh yeah, now I remember that the dive guide seemed a bit green and got anxious when I got just a bit ahead of him or went to check a small hole within easy reach of him, when he only had 2 divers to keep track of. Sigh... But that confirms what I was saying that Dive Kauai is definitely not for advanced divers.
Day3: 2 DPV Shore Dives
Day 3 was supposed to be 2 boat dives, but by then Nick managed to ruin my previous afternoon with hours on the phone to undo the mess he created on purpose, and ultimately failing. I ended up doing 2 DPV dives which were actually a lot of fun and, Jimi, the guide who came to meet me was awesome.
yes, it's pretty awesome
Despite all the crap and bad feelings from Nick, the DPV dives were lots of fun, even if the DPVs themselves had worrisome failure modes, including no maser shutoff of wrist deadman switch. I was even told that sometimes they get stuck on, that's not good... Thankfully they did not for me and they were definitely fun.
Before the dives, a dive Kauai manager/coordinator also came to meet me that morning to apologize about the mess created the previous day, which was nice of him and honestly I was ok enough walking away after that and burrying the hatchet, except passive agressive backstabbing Nick felt it would be good to call the next company I was going with to badmouth me and try to convince them not to dive with me, oh nice... So yeah, after that Nick made sure I let everyone know on every medium available to avoid him and Dive Kauai. I hope he gets fired....
Day4: 6 Dives with Fathom Five
Fathom Five was able to accommodate me for 6 dives in a day, 4 boat dives and 2 shore dusk/night dives, which was impressive. I got lucky with the boat dives that day, they were good:
the guide was good and gave us a good briefing on what we could see
not hard to find turtles, they are literally everywhere
I finally found where the lobsters were hiding in Sheraton Caves, took me a while to find the spot again
For the dusk/night dives, we were 4 divers, plus the guide:
Then, I found this beautiful Stary Night Octopus, but that also ended the dive as it got a bit too friendly with us:
