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Hawaii Fever: Catching the Wrecked and Wild Sides of Oahu and Maui
Hawaii dive travelers tend to become Hawaii hands — the sort of knowledgeable repeat visitors who come back again and again, knowing that this Pacific-surrounded piece of the United States offers a spectrum of adventure — all of it accessible without a passport. And when it comes to the core of the Hawaii experience, the wrecks and bustle of Oahu, and the wild and natural beauty of Maui, are often seen as bookends to the experience. In the space of two islands, it's possible to catch a lifelong case of Hawaii fever.
The Ghosts of Oahu Shipwrecks New and Old
Glance out the left-side window on final approach to Honolulu International Airport, and chances are good that you will spot Pearl Harbor — one of the most famous and hallowed spots in the Hawaiian islands — with the USS Missouri Museum ship and the snow-white span of the USS Arizona Memorial.
It is a sight sufficient to fire the imagination of any historian, and all wreck divers are, to some degree or other, historians.
During the early morning attack of Dec. 7, 1941, a number of American and Japanese ships and aircraft sank, and virtually all of them are either protected from visitation or — like the Japanese midget submarine discovered just a few years ago and now considered the first vessel sunk by the United States Navy during World War II — far too deep to be reached by recreational divers. Yet, despite this relative dearth of "natural" wrecks, Oahu — Hawaii's most populous island — is nonetheless notable to divers for the broad range of wreck diving it offers. And at least one of those wrecks is historic and relates to the Pacific War.
THE SEA TIGER, YO-257 AND SAN PEDRO
Some, on the other hand, do not relate to the Pacific War — yet they still fascinate. Three, in fact, were sunk as tourist attractions.
The Sea Tiger, the YO-257 and the San Pedro were all placed on the bottom near Waikiki to provide focal points for submarine tours. All three were immediately adopted by their environments.
The 168-foot Sea Tiger sits, for instance, on a 130-foot bottom, where this former Hawaiian fishing vessel has become a hulking, blue-gray neighborhood for eagle rays and home to a variety of reef species, from myopic moray eels to delicate nudibranchs. One highlight to look for is the gigantic honu, or Hawaiian green sea turtle, which have taken up residence on the wreck.
Upright and still very much intact, this is one of the best wrecks in Hawaii for penetration by trained divers, but the emphasis here has to be on "trained." The Sea Tiger is both large enough and deep enough that untrained divers can easily become disoriented and lost. But for Open Water divers, even an underwater promenade around the outside of the wreck will provide enough to see for several dives.
Down longer than the Sea Tiger and more thickly covered in underwater growth, the YO-257 is home to a number of turtles, as well as the usual staggering variety of Hawaiian fish. The stern section of this former Navy yard oiler offers a fairly spacious swim-through that is draped in coral — the ocean slowly and gracefully embracing the man-made. This wreck was prepped for divers, with holes cut into its hull for access and egress. Shallower than the Sea Tiger, the YO-257 rests at just 95 feet, and if you conserve air, you'll probably have more than enough left to venture over and have a look at a neighbor — the San Pedro, which was added as an additional attraction (and an additional artificial reef) in 1996.
Although partially collapsed by typhoons that have scoured it over the last decade or so, the San Pedro remains a picturesque home for turtles and whitetip reef sharks. It's a popular end-of-dive sojourn for photographers with room left on their digital media.
Remember as you dive these wrecks that a submarine drive-by (or would that be a "dive-by?") is a possibility on all three. The company that placed the Sea Tiger no longer uses it as a tour subject, so for the moment at least, divers have it to themselves. That's not the case on YO-257 or San Pedro, which are still toured regularly by Atlantis Submarines — and it may not be the case in the future for Sea Tiger. An encounter with a sub provides something extra, exciting and unusual to see, but it's also something to be aware of. Listen for approaching propellers, ascend and cross open water carefully, and keep a considerable and safe distance from the sub, as you would from any watercraft under way.
LANDING CRAFT AND BARGES
While considerably smaller than their submarine-company-placed cousins, the LCU (Landing Craft Utility) East and LCU West dive sites, as well as the two wreck sites known as the Baby Barge and the New Barge, all virtually guarantee an encounter with whitetip reef sharks, usually found resting under an overhang or on the bottom.
The reef surrounding the smaller Baby Barge (on the bottom longer than the New Barge) is known as one of the best spots around Oahu to look for frogfish and their wispier cousins, leaf scorpionfish. The Baby Barge is also the shallowest of the four wreck sites, with 70 feet being the typical bottom logged here, although an adjacent cavern is about 15 feet deeper. The other three all run in the 90- to 97-foot range.
THE MAHI
A former Navy minesweeper which was later refitted and used in the Bahamas as a cable layer, the globe-trotting MV Mahi ended its floating life as a research vessel for the University of Hawaii and adds a been-everywhere, done-everything mystique to underwater Oahu. Placed on the bottom in 1996, the Mahi was turned completely around and partially collapsed during Typhoon Iwa, so it is no longer recommended to divers as a penetration wreck dive. But even without an accessible interior, the 176-foot wreck remains the most popular dive site on the west side of Oahu. Cruise over and around it, and you will be rewarded with puffers, nudibranchs, octopuses and possibly even a fly-by of spotted eagle rays. Oahu's ubiquitous whitetip reef sharks are usually also in attendance on this site — just another feature that makes the Mahi well worth a visit. Nearby lava tubes offer a fascinating and natural setting for a second dive.
THE 29 DOWN
The newest addition to Oahu's wreck and artificial reef repertoire is the 29 Down, the fuselage of a former Hawaiian Air Transport Service aircraft that was used in the Hawaiian-shot Discovery Channel Kids TV series Flight 29 Down — hence the name. It was placed in the water at the end of September last year and, as the fuselage weighs just 2,000 pounds, broken pieces of concrete pier were used to anchor it in place. The wingless aircraft, a de Havilland Heron, is 50 feet long and sits in just 60 feet of water off the Waianae Coast, so bottom time is never a problem here. Corals, morays, octopuses and even a frogfish have already adopted the airplane as part of their environment.
The fuselage sits on a sandy bottom with a sand slope leading out to the ocean and a reef a short distance away, toward shore. The bottom between the 29 Down and the reef has been seeded with "Z-blocks" — Z-shaped concrete blocks that rest on feet and provide plenty of nooks, crannies, voids and overhangs to shelter juvenile reef fish and provide a place for corals to take hold.
The wings to 29 Down have also been secured and plans are afoot to place them on the site at a future date. So, between the Z-blocks and the wreck building, this site is certain to grow in more ways than one as time goes on.
THE CORSAIR
Speaking of aircraft, one genuine World War II relic on the Oahu bottom is the largely intact wreck of a Navy F4U Chance Vought Corsair fighter/bomber (the same sort of airplane flown in the old Black Sheep Squadron TV series). It's easy to imagine the old one-man war bird as a shot-down defender against the Pearl Harbor attack, but the truth is a bit more mundane. Two years after the attack, the plane's pilot ran out of fuel on approach and ditched into the sea. He escaped; in fact, local divemasters say that he is still alive and living on Molokai. But the World War II airplane, like most lost to the sea in the Pacific War, was never raised from the deep. Instead, it has become a microcosmic environment for sea life, and a must-dive for wreck divers wishing to dive World War II relics.
A photo op near the cockpit is one of the highlights of a Corsair dive. But be aware that a variety of sea creatures, including a fairly large moray, have adopted the old airplane as a home in the more than six decades since its final flight. It's just one more reminder that, while these Oahu wrecks once belonged to us, they are now, and for all eternity, the property of the living sea.
Quick Guide:
Waikiki diving center (waikikidiving.com) has been a full-service dive center since 1979 and is minutes from most Waikiki hotels, and all dive tours include a complimentary shuttle to and from the hotel. Waikiki Diving Center's dive boat is rated for 16 divers, but carries 10 maximum. dive oahu (diveoahu.com) uses a 38-foot Custom Cat, rated for 28 passengers as its primary dive boat, and does a wreck and a reef dive in the morning and two shallow reef dives in the afternoon. The shop has 18 years of experience diving Oahu. Non-diving friends and family can accompany divers for a nominal fee. outrigger reef on the beach (outriggerreef.com), only steps from the exciting new Waikiki Beach Walk, recently completed the first phase of a $120 million top-to-bottom transformation, with new Ocean Tower guest rooms on the beachfront. Distinctive and refined, Outrigger Reef on the Beach's services include two restaurants and the Serenity Spa. For more information, contact the oahu visitors bureau (visit-oahu.com) and the hawaii convention and visitors bureau (gohawaii.com).
Feet-Dry History
Warships Still Afloat
Want to visit a World War II-era vessel that you won't have to don scuba gear to explore? The Pearl Harbor area offers two — the USS Missouri Memorial and the USS Bowfin Submarine Museum and Park. For the USS Missouri, your best bet is the Chief's Guided Tour, a 60-minute walk led by a knowledgeable staff member — for one thing, it guarantees you won't get lost on this virtual floating city. It's a little harder to get lost on the Bowfin, but you'll want to take advantage of the audio guide that the park provides. It helps give you a perspective of this seasoned vessel, which made nine successful wartime tours and was known as the "Pearl Harbor Avenger." Both ships are within walking distance of the Arizona Memorial Visitors Center.
The Vibrant Side of Maui
Hawaii Au Naturel
There is no fountaining lava here, and the bustle and commerce of the beach scene are largely absent as well. So why is it that visitors regularly fall in love with Maui?
Probably it's because Maui County, which encompasses both Maui and Lanai, is a genuine slice of the old Hawaii — the Hawaii that was here long before the attack on Pearl Harbor, when agriculture and artists made up most of the local scene. Contemporary Maui is natural. It's casual. It is oftentimes stunningly beautiful. And it has a tempo that calms the nerves and soothes the soul.
Underwater, Maui offers diving that ranges from shore-diving simple to wall-to-wall dramatic. And again, the draw is the natural side of things. From nudis and eels to dolphins, sharks and mantas, this is the place to walk on Hawaii's wild side. And Maui offers five different and distinct wild sides from which to choose.
TURTLE REEF
The barrier reef known as Turtle Reef is actually broken up into well over a dozen recognized dive sites on the island off Maui's western shore, from Honolua Bay in the north down to Thousand Peaks in the south. Aptly named, this is the side of Maui to dive if you want to absolutely, positively encounter a honu, or native Hawaiian green sea turtle, some of which can grow to absolutely gargantuan size.
But honu is not the only resident you'll encounter on your dives here. This long barrier reef is home to most of Hawaii's hundreds of species of reef fish, a quarter of which are endemic to the Hawaiian Islands. Moreover, most Turtle Reef dive sites are shallow — enough so that an Open Water Diver card is more than enough qualification to visit them, and the limiting factor on your dives is almost certain to be time, rather than air.
Virtually all of the sites on this end of Maui can be dived from shore, making them ideal for Hawaii's version of "Play it again, Sam." Like a dive site on the West End that you visited by dive boat? Grab a buddy, put a cylinder or two in the cargo area of your rental Jeep, and go back and dive it again at your own pace.
Black Rock, near the Sheraton Resort and one of the most popular shore dives on Maui, bottoms out at just 20 feet — you're apt to turn pruney long before your tables or your dive computer tell you it's time to head up. Yet this underwater lava formation is alive with Spanish dancers, cowries, turtles and more, and a cavern in the rock adds an interesting dimension to this easy and shallow dive.
Olowalu Beach not only has a great Hawaiian name — it's a very good site for parrotfish and wrasse, not to mention turtles, and you may see a passing sand tiger shark here as well. If you are looking for a good shore dive with great coral, Olowalu is hard to beat.
One exception to the sand-to-sea accessibility of these sites is Canoe Beach. Although close to the Hyatt Regency resort, this site is far enough out, and the intervening water sufficiently current-swept, that you'll want to visit this particular site with a boat. But other than distance, Canoe Beach is extremely beginner friendly — enough so that you might even consider it for a first-ever boat dive. The depth on-site is deep for this end of the island (50 feet), but the visibility is typically 60 feet, making it easy to spot turtles, scorpionfish, damselfish and much, much more.
THE SOUTH SHORE
Rocky and generally a bit rougher than Turtle Reef, Maui's south is again a shore-diver's dream, although the dreamers in this case should be somewhat more experienced divers, particularly for some of the entries and exits. But the reward is pristine waters and lots of underwater life. La Perouse Bay and the adjacent site of Ahihi Bay are both marine preserves (two of the four marine preserves in Maui waters). Ahihi Bay is currently closed, as a reef recovery process, but will reopen in 2010.
But for divers with adventurous non-diving friends, south-shore sites generally offer plenty to see for snorkelers as well. And the sun drenches this stretch of the Maui coast for most of the day, making it a great place to work on that "look, I've been to the islands" tan.
Like the west side, dives on the south tend to be relatively shallow and extremely bottom-time friendly, although sea conditions can have an effect on this. Some, like the fun-to-explore Five Caves, have rocky entries that will probably have you and your buddy entering arm-in-arm. The dive at Five Caves, though, bottoms out at just 50 feet and offers enough caves and swim-throughs that you'll definitely want to bring a dive light to scope out the marine life — it's a great place to spot turtles — and formations.
One exception to the shallow-site rule is Dragon Reef (so named for an underwater lava ridge covered in octocorals that, to some eyes at least, resembles a dragon's back). One can easily reach 70 feet at this site, making it one of the few south-shore sites where your first-dive-of-the-day bottom time might actually be less than an hour. But what Dragon's Reef lacks in bottom time it more than makes up for in things to see: Hawaii's usual (read "staggering") variety of reef fish and marine life.
THE NORTH SHORE
From Hana Bay west to Ho'okipa Beach, Maui bears the brunt of Pacific swells, giving this area some of the strongest currents — and with them, the influx of nutrients that grow large, healthy coral and attract some of the largest pelagic life. Although shore diving is an option at some North Shore sites, most are best visited with a local divemaster and a dive boat.
The North Shore sites tend to be the deepest dive sites in Maui, with only Molokini Wall offering greater depth than what you'll find here. Hidden Pinnacle, for instance, offers 100 or more feet of visibility. The structure rises from a 120-foot bottom. Pyramid butterflyfish and healthy deepwater sponges are resident attractions, and a full variety of pelagics present the possibility of cameo appearances. In addition to depth, Hidden Pinnacle usually has a fair amount of current present and can only be visited when weather conditions allow, so a PADI Professional who knows the site and a bit of open-ocean experience are both good ideas when diving here; it's proof that, in addition to being beginner- friendly, Maui has sites that a diver can grow into.
LANAI
Also known as the "Pineapple Island" because the entire island was once a pineapple plantation, Lanai lies nine miles offshore from Maui. The plantation is now gone, and two luxury resorts and two championship golf courses have taken its place, but there are still no traffic lights on the island, and a good portion of Lanai's roads can still be navigated only by four-wheel drive.
If "natural" is the picture you get, you're on the right track. And underwater, that is especially the case. Off Maui's south shore is where many of the most spectacular of Hawaii's underwater photographs have been shot. From the supernaturally beautiful shafts of light reaching down from the ceilings of First Cathedral and Second Cathedral, to the beauty of flights of eagle rays winging their way under a dappled surface, Lanai is a cavalcade of drama and beauty.
Lanai is also a place to be approached without preconceptions. The dive site known as Pyramids, for instance, is named not for underwater rock formations (although it has those as well) but for the thriving colony of resident pyramid butterfly fish that are dependably on-site here. And Armchair is not a pleasant place to take a snooze, but a site where the shore topography looks like a La-Z-Boy for a sea-gazing giant. Populated with fish that will follow, rather than flee from divers, Armchair runs as deep as 50 feet, yet has enough to see near the surface that even snorkelers can be content here. And turtles, dolphins and eagle rays all make regular appearances on this site.
With its more than 25 dive sites, Lanai offers lava tubes, arches, caverns and all the diversity of an island that stands miles offshore from its neighbors. It's possible to spend your entire dive trip here and leave completely satisfied.
MOLOKINI CRATER
With Hawaii's greatest diversity of sea life in a single place, and the state's best visibility (routinely exceeding 100 feet), Molokini Crater is the central reason that many divers come to Maui. The upper portion of a shield volcano's crater, a crescentlike section of Molokini extends above water, and the rest forms a tropically warm bowl that serves as a nursery for all sorts of oceanic life.
Just about every reef fish in Hawaii is found here — and given the 50th state's stunning diversity, that's saying a lot. You can also find a variety of octopus species, various species of moray eels and an abundant population of whitetip reef sharks. The Molokini Wall is an eye-opening advanced drift dive on a site that plummets into foggy blue depths and has often been referred to as the best wall dive in the United States.
With whitetip, blacktip and gray reef sharks, dolphins, schools of fish numbering in the thousands, and even regular visits by mantas, Molokini Wall is the sort of site most people want to visit again and again. Then again, that's a pretty apt description of Maui in general.
Quick Guide:
Maui dive shop mauidiveshop.com operates both a 48-foot boat and a 32-foot boat, and offers trips to at least two destinations every day of the week, with one trip geared to newer divers and snorkelers. lahaina divers has a quarter century of experience diving Maui, Molokini and Lanai, and operates two 46-foot boats. The operation is also disabled-friendly. Hawaiian rafting adventures/dive maui caters to small groups; the boat is rated for 22 divers, but carries a maximum of 12. In the water, dives are done in groups of no more than six divers plus a dive professional. Scuba shack maui scubashack .com operates a 40-foot jet-drive dive boat carrying a maximum of 12 divers, and advertises its service as "like having friends on Maui that own a boat." For more information, contact the Maui Visitors Bureau.
Scratching the Surface
Top Inland Treks
If you have a midweek surface interval, a non-diving companion looking for something to do off the boat, or simply an interest in thoroughly enjoying one of Hawaii's most naturally beautiful Islands, here's Sport Diver's three-part topside tour of the beautifully wild side of Maui:
Begin by renting a car and making the drive from Kahului Airport to Hana on the world-famous "Road to Hana." Budget three hours for the drive — and if you stop for pictures as often as we do, even that might not be enough. This spectacular drive makes more than 600 twists and turns (an average of about a dozen every mile), crosses 54 bridges in its 53-mile length, and passes some of the most spectacular scenery you'll ever see from a car window.
You'll see pineapple and taro fields in cultivation, tropical rainforests, waterfalls, steep volcanic terrain, and, of course, the vast Pacific. This drive can also be done as a guided tour, or you can buy a tour tape or CD and listen to it as you drive for a better understanding of what you're seeing.
Feel like a walk once you reach Hana? Go past town to the south and hike the Pipiwai Trail up to 400-foot-tall Waimoku Falls. The trail takes about four hours, but it's worth the walk.
Then get to bed early, wake up at about three in the morning, and drive up to the Haleakala Visitors Center in Haleakala National Park to watch the sunrise from the crater's edge — absolutely guaranteed to be the best sunrise in Hawaii. Your vantage point, 9,740 feet above the Pacific Ocean (which you'll be able to see, if there aren't clouds below you) makes this an amazing way to start the day.
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