Hale'iwa Ali'i Beach

Good parking, all the facilities, and a well-groomed park are to be found. Here's the entrance to both the boat harbor and to the beach park. Parking is in the far background of the picture, under the trees. There is a nice wall straight out from the beach. Take your dive flag with you, as you can see this is a well-used harbor!

Super easy entry. Basically walk right in and swim to the trench and swim up and down. Depth drops very quickly. Exactly like Coral Girl says: please stay off the coral. Some very pretty structure and lots of turtles. There are great facilities and lifeguards on the beach. Next I will bring family to hang out on the shore as I go in. Visibility today was 35 feet at best. Temp drops very quickly here also, I recommend wetsuit. My max depth was only 65feet

First dive here today, the only problem that I have is walking on the reef to get to the trench. Coral only grows centimeters a years and foot track on an already endangered coral ecosystem is a no no. I will only dive here again if I enter at the right of the trench (looking makai) and swim to trench and descend. TO ALL WHO CARE ABOUT THE OCEAN AND CORAL REEF PLEASE DO THE SAME. DON'T WALK ON CORAL REEFS, EVEN WITH BOOTIES. PLEASE, YOU ARE KILLING IT!

August 15, 2009. Looks like the jury is still out on Hale'iwa Ali'i Beach AKA Turtle Street site. Is the best shore dive on O'ahu? Not by my vote, but it is a great place to see honu, and lots of them! We were a little bummed that we *only* saw 9 on our second dive here. We didn't see many below 35', and so if you're only interested in those skip the bottom of the trench with its silt and muck. And while in the trench spend as much time looking up for honu overhead as you do looking down and at the wall, or you'll miss a lot. The honu cleaning stations were amazing. Also saw several bristleworms and nudibranchs. We expected poor viz and got it. I was surprised by the diversity of fish on the swim out to the trench, and I'd come back just to snorkel the first couple hundred feet. Haven't tried a night dive here...yet! ScubaFella43 has the best entry/exit identified in his reviews.

It's been more than a few years since I dove here. I did the dive once from an inflatable and once from shore. The dive seemed like a lot of effort, with limited visibility, poor reef, and a mostly featureless wall with little life. It sounds as if everyone here has different opinions about the site. I'll stick to sites with coral and fishes elsewhere. I read the other's reviews as I was looking for a winter alternative to Hanauma Bay and Kahe Point. Still not convinced!

Wow, what a dive. Spooky and eerie because when you dive and look down it just seems endless. I recommend some hard booties though because it is a good walk from the entry to about 5 ft., and also there are lots of Urchins. Great turtle population, and at the bottom, 95ft there are some great caverns and holes to explore. Bring a good flashlight. I got spooked pretty bad when I shined my light in a cavern and out came a turtle. Great dive, and surprisingly a fairly easy entry and exit

Sorry to hear folks had a bad time here. I still love this site, but must caution the best time to dive here is slack tide if you can manage it. Instead of entering straight off the beach, walk past the life guard parking and the large building then enter to the left of the rocky point on the left side of the picture. Swim straight out to the edge of the trench, lined up with the rocky point entry, drop there, on the bottom head N/NE along the wall. You'll come to a nice pinnacle, circle it up to the top, once there you'll notice a cut in the wall, this is a good place to start back toward the surface. Where the wall ends it's at 15 feet, a nice place for a safety stop and as an added extra bonus there's a turtle cleaning station right there facing back the way you came from. This is also known as "Turtle Street". I've seen gads of turtles here from time to time. Yes the trench can be spooky and murky, but that alone makes it unlike any other site on Oahu, other than Magic Island after a sewage spill in Waikiki. At the pinnacle I found the heal of an old boat shoe stuck on the rock; to me it looked like if I pulled it out it would float away. Turned out though that after a small, short tug of war it was a sponge crab using the shoe heal on its back instead of a sponge! Imagine my surprise, too bad the folks with me were mugging for pictures, that would have made a great shot. I use this site to teach the PADI Nat Geo Specialty.

I was told that this was *the* best beach dive here on Oahu. I've dove many spots on Oahu and this is by far the worst. Trench is covered with silt and hardly any marine to speak of. Reached a depth of 85 ft and felt like I was diving in a lake. It was gloomy, murky and nothing to look at. Maybe night dives are good here but I can't recommend diving here. Better to go to Three Tables, Sharks Cove or Kahe Point.

Great dive…especially at night. At night, lots of shrimp, turtles (Big ones), and moray (saw a dragon moray there). When we dive here we like to go to the right toward the cleaning station on the first wall. Then if conditions and surfers allow, we'll head out on the bottom to the second reef. Second reef is much more active, and good place to find Tiger Cowrys. You can always go left on the reef, as there is lots of new coral out there. Start on the bottom and work your way back along the top of the reef. Visibility is usually better on the bottom, but normally it stays a little below average. It can get murky so have your compass. Remember the beach is around 120'. Definitely have some hard soles and watch the exit and make sure the surf doesn't kick you down. You don't want to have to put your hands down anywhere...lots of urchins. Happy Diving!

Just did the trench at night and it was great. Easy entry, no waves to speak of, no current and not much of a surge. Plenty of turtles, reef shrimp, a really big Spanish Dancer, and even an elusive Dragon Moray!! We had a half moon so vis wasn't too bad with just ambient light.

The trench was pretty cool…we walked out from the leeward side of the surf center (big brown building). Make sure you wear some good protective boots when you're diving there, since there's a lot of sea urchins in that reef. Unless you swim out from the breaker to the windward side of the surf center, you'll have to walk over about 75 yards of reef. I stepped on something that kinda jabbed through my soft sole booties, and it wasn't pretty…but that didn't stop me from doing the dive. I didn't even tell my buddies because I didn't want to not dive. The pain didn't last, though. I got distracted by the dive. Once you get to that wall it drops about 70 feet or so...not too many fish, maybe at the second reef. Has anyone been to that reef? Is there a lot of reef life out there?

Ok, I'm not too sure the aerial photo does this site justice. I never used the entry shown. From a large park facility building, looking at it from the parking lot, go to the beach to the left of the building and enter there (waves here are a lot smaller, too). There's a nice reef when you first enter, a trench about 75 yards out that goes to about 80-85', then another reef beyond the trench at about 175 yards aka the 2nd reef. The first time I dove this site it was pretty murky, spooky and I felt like shark bait. The 2nd time vis was pretty good and, looking back up from the bottom of the trench, was a sight to behold. Lots of puka's (holes) in the side of the trench that are large enough for turtles to sleep in. The 2nd reef is great since it is fairly undisturbed and not many folks go all that way to dive it. There can be a current out here so watch out for that. Don't forget your dive flag!!

This site is beautiful, saw up to 6 turtles at a cleaning spot, small caves, found 1 tunnel. Drop down to 95 feet to see amazing puffer fish not common to the islands. Watch the current, and boat traffic can be heavy. Experienced divers only!

This was my first wall. It was amazing. We saw 2 turtles "flying" above us. There was also a small red striped snake and great coral. The coral here is beautiful orange and looks melted. There's also lots of cauliflower coral and white pencil urchins. The ease of shore entry was welcoming. We were the only ones out there! The surface swim was no problem! Definantly worth the kicks!

Parking, Showers, Beach entrance and walking distance to the beach are very easy. The dive is shallow the first 100 yards, then is it drops to about 80 ft. There are two trenches. Most see only the first but there is another further out. Lots of turtles hanging out in the ledge. Reef fish count is normal, nothing great. A pretty mellow dive overall.

My favorite shore dive on the island. You can actually dive two walls here. Both walls are parallel to the shore. surface swim out heading 300 degrees from the beach and you will run into a drop off to about 90 ft. If you keep heading out, you will hit another wall. The locals call this site "THE TRENCH". You should actually dive to the left of this aerial picture. Abundant turtle life. Some as big as small cars. Excellent night dive.