I do not think of the Kona as a true destination for diving. But it is a great multi-purpose family vacation spot with many things to do.

By far and away the best diving is the manta night dive. It is very good for divers and for snorkelers. The diving is about 30 feet deep and you all sit down in a circle around the projector which brings in plankton which brings int he mantas. The arrival rate is very high. We had one female show up and she was a show animal. She swooped and danced for as long as we had air in our tanks. At one point she swooped over my daughter and looked like she was going to crash right into her but then belly rolled on top of her instead. My wife, who does not dive, saw the whole show from right overhead. I have talked with others who have been there recently and they have seen up to 30 mantas on a night. For divers and snorkelers, this is just fantastic.

The diving topography is kind of boring, even compared to the Caribbean. Because of the remoteness of the islands, they do not get many eggs to setup shop. But we did see a lot of interesting animals. We saw lots of eels and several of them were quite interesting and unusual. We saw a half dozen turtles in 4 days of diving. We saw a leaffish, a frogfish at about 100 feet, and several interesting snail like creatures. I was surprised to see just how many things we saw in a few days.

The water is very clear-- up to about 100 feet of visibility in places. It was probably in the 75 to 78 degree range which is not real warm if you are diving more than a few dives a day.

We dove with one of the local dive operators and they were great. My two teens both got their advanced PADI certs while here. They were very comfortable with young and inexperienced divers. This is a great place to get certified. The only negative is that the logistics are a bit painful. You have to drive a harbor where you meet the boat and then have a 20 to 45 minute boat ride to the dive sites. The dive masters were great with my children and I was pretty much left by myself to snap photos and find little fishes.

We stayed in a two bedroom condo on the edge of town which was right on the water. We even were able to do a couple of shore dives which were pretty boring. We made steaks and fish on the grill most nights which we bought at the local Costco. It was every bit as good as a restaurant for about 1/3 the price.

Of course, there are so many things to see and do on the big island of Hawaii. My kids went parasailing which was a highlight. We had a luau at a local resort. We drove around the island to see the volcano on the other side. This is a full day adventure and you are best to leave at around 6am so you have plenty of time to stop and do things. I have not been diving anywhere else in the islands, but I believe that this is one of the best spots on the islands.

We were here with our family of five for a week. Many people come here for 3 or 4 days which is fine, but there is plenty to see and do in a week. I would suggest 2 or 3 days of diving together with lots of other rainforest activities. Getting there is a bit of an adventure in a small plane from San Jose that has to go up over the mountains. The air currents have fun and my children were white when we got there.

The lodge is reached after a 20 minute boat ride from the airstrip to dock. It's a good walk up the hill to get there. This is a place that requires a bit of fitness. The central lodge is where you eat and gather. It was very nice and had a beautiful view of the ocean to the west. The food was from a menu for dinner and buffet for breakfast. Very good lodge food, but not fantastic. Everyone was happy, but we didn't leave thinking food was the outstanding feature of the trip.

The resort has a small beach that is a bit of a hike down to the ocean. It was OK, but the pool was a lot better. Monkeys would also come to the pool and visit us which was pretty cool. You are definitely in the rainforest.

We went to the rainforest twice--once by boat and once by horse. Those were incredible days. We saw so many monkeys and other animals of the tropics. It was outstanding. On several occassions, we saw the great scarlet maccaws which was a trip highlight. We even saw them right at the lodge at one point. Very memorable.

The diving is primarily around the island of Cano which is about an hour boat ride away from the resort. Most of the people that go there are snorkelers but the staff really likes to go in with divers because it is more fun for them. The diving is pretty wild. There some very strong thermoclines, the strongest that I have ever experienced. The water was upper 70s above about 50 feet and 70 below the thermocline. You can actually see the layer in the water. Visibility was average, probably about 50 to 70 feet.

The dive landscape is primarily is boulders with algae, not much coral to be seen. But lots of bigger fish. We saw a big school of barracuda, trevaly and jacks. Saw several mantas and a mobulla ray which I had not seen before. We also saw LOTS of eels. Maybe a dozen on one dive.

The Bajo del Diablo is a stone pinnacle that rises to within 30 feet of the surface. This dive site was great, similar to some of the dive sites in the Galapagos Islands. We dove here twice and the second time we saw about 25 white tips which were very active. It was almost a little intimidating because there were so many of them.

The dive operation was small but very capable. They were well prepared for helping divers who were novice to more experienced. Because most went snorkeling, we had a divemaster for two of us and he was great at finding things of interest for us.

Cozumel is where many Americans go to dive. It is easy to get to, relatively inexpensive, and the diving is very good. Although I like Little Cayman and The Belizean atolls a bit better, it ranks right up there with the best diving in the Caribbean.

I have been here a half dozen times, so this review is a bit of an amalgam of several trips. The weather varies a lot from season to season. June and July are my favorite times to dive here when the water is very warm and seas are flat as glass. Hurricanes are an issue here in August (it seems to attract early ones) and we were there once in August a week or so after a medium sized one, so the threat is real. It is perfect in early summer. Was there in late fall and it was very rough and we were quite restricted in where we went. Spring break was good as well, kind of in between.

Our family has stayed in a condo or two in the north part of the island which was great and good value. If you have a couple of kids and want a mixed activity vacation, this worked great. Diving requires a bit of a drive, so you kind of need a car to commute. If you want an all in dive holiday, this is probably not so good. I have stayed at the Presidente which is right by the best dive sites. The boat picked us up right by the hotel peer and you are diving in 10 minutes. You also are south of the cruise ship parking lot.

There are a lot of options in dive operators as well. We have avoided the hotel operators ard selected those that cater to more serious divers. We stay away from those that focus on the cruise trade and fill in with divers when they can't fill up there scuba buses.

In early March, my adult daughter and I flew to Port Moresby to board the Golden Dawn which was bound to the Eastern Fields and onward to the Australian reefs of Boot and Ashmore. She and I had been there 3 years earlier and a shorter itinerary limited our diving opportunities to the inner part of the Eastern Fields.

Well, weather intervened and a cyclonic weather pattern made our trip out into the open water a high risk endeavor. After discussing options with us, the owner and captain, Craig DeWitt, sent us down the coast to the Milne Bay diving area. This did carve a couple of days of diving out of our two week trip and the diving along the southern coast is not that great. The trip out to the Eastern Fields is a bit risky and open waters does threaten these itineraries. I highly recommend on planning for a 14 day trip so that the boat can make adjustments and secure a good chunk of diving no matter what the weather.

The diving in Milne Bay ranged from spectacular to mundane at times. Banana Bommie is rated as one of the top 100 dive sites in the world and in was great. We dove several other dive sites like that where fish density was as high as I ever seen. These sites compared very favorably with the dive sites around the Raja Ampat area which is considered the gold standard in dive quality. The one missing ingredient: lots of purple and pink soft corals. We saw some, but not a lot.

Critter diving was also very good. The dive sites at Dinah’s Beach are one part coral pinnacle and one part critters. And the critters are very much in abundance. Maybe a notch below Lembeh, but only a small notch. And, you will never see another diver the entire day. On the way home, we stopped at a passage where Craig thought that the critter diving might be good and we hit the jack pot. It may well have been the best hour of dive photography that I have ever experienced. My daughter found a new critter about once every 90 seconds, and I hammered my strobes. Amazing. I might have been the first one to ever dive this site.

The Golden Dawn and the owner, Craig DeWitt, are pretty much inseparable. The boat is a bit small, especially compared to Indonesian boat that are bigger and more comfortable at times. But Craig is amazingly excited about the reefs and the secrets that they give up on each new trip. No one knows any more about this part of the underwater world than Craig. He is a class act and his recent marriage to Cam has softened him up a bit too. There is no one in the dive industry that I respect more than him.

The service is good but does lack some attention to detail. The attention to detail and pampering that you get in Indonesia are sometimes lacking. No hot towels when you come up from a dive. No hot chocolate, but you do get an great afternoon bakery creation every day. The crew is competent, but not attentive at times.

The food was good, especially our dinners. Breakfasts were very good as well, but lacked variety. His new wife, Cam, seems to add a nice “woman’s touch” and we liked we she brought to the boat. The dinners were very good, especially when we caught a Spanish mackerel and had baked fresh fish on several days.

So, who would like this boat? If luxury and detail are important to you, you should go to one of the nice boats in Indonesia like the Damai or Arenui. If you don’t mind doing some things for yourself, Craig and his boat, the Golden Dawn, are a great place to go. I had the misfortune of learning several days into the trip and a long time friend and neighbor had died suddenly back at home. So that raised the question—if I had one last dive trip to take where would I go back to? Milne Bay would get a lot of thought, especially if that were the intended spot that didn’t require 500 mile round trip of sailing to get to. Several of the dives were amongst the best I have ever done. For those of us who love the ocean, spending a final dive trip with Craig would be my final choice.