Or, ask for a Crepuscular Dive! I know, a WHAT??? There is a time on the reef that is absolutely magic - that brief interval between day and night when fish form in lengthy parades that seem to march in constant revolution; when spawning occurs among many species; when the day fish gulp their bedtime snacks, don their PJ's (night coloring) and head for protection in the reef's structure. At the same time, shrimp, crabs and eels are all stretching, yawning, getting their coffee and crawling out for a night of hunting and feeding.
One of our favorites!
NIGHT DIVES
The much publicized Manta Ray Night Dive happens both near the new Sheraton Keauhou Resort and Spa and at Desert Delite (the Garden Eel Dive) up past the airport. Both sites can be very crowded with up to 8 dive boats during busy times, but when the mantas show up it is a fantastic and exciting dive. If you have not had the chance to dive with the mantas, you really should try to fit this dive in. Having an animal with a 15 foot wing span swim directly at you with its huge mouth open wide, scooping plankton, passing just inches from your head is a memory you will hold forever.
We do this as a 2-tank dive, both dives at the same site. The first dive is a late afternoon or sunset dive giving us the chance to check out the site, including the deeper areas. Once the sun goes down, we jump in for our second dive and hope the mantas show up. If it is not to be a night with mantas, both the Sheraton and Desert Delite sites are fantastic places for a night dive.
If the mantas are not for you, we'd love to take you on a "regular" reef night dive to one of the 50 or so other dive sites around Kona. These dives are a fascinating peek into the night world of wondrous "critters" that emerge at sunset to prowl the reefs unseen by most. Although, we probably won’t see mantas (that’s a “probably” because we do see them on occasion), we should see eels out hunting, a huge variety of crustaceans you never see during the day, like the bulls eye lobster, sleeping parrot fish and who knows what else! This is a 1-tank dive leaving the harbor just before sunset, so it has the added bonus of a sunset cruise. (No extra charge for front row seats to one of the world’s best sunsets.)
