Turtle Heaven

My buddy and I Entered on the East side of the Haleiwa boat channel. It is pretty shallow here for the first few hundred yards. Head for the Green Buoy that marks the channel. Just to east of the buoy is some really great shelves that range from 5' to 40', lots of walls and pinnacles. Minimal current. We saw perhaps 40-50 turtles in the span of an hour. The reef is in really good condition here, too. It was pretty flat the day we went which is key here for good visibility. We snorkeled just to check it out, and is pretty good for an advanced skin diver (it's a long swim out). Note: Make sure you have a dive flag and stay out of the channel, the boats rip in and out on a regular basis. Also if you are spearing, stay east of the Harbor since this site is just outside of the boundary.

Turtle Heaven is also called Police Beach and Hale'Iwa Beach Park. I started calling it Turtle Heaven, for lack of a better name, in 1992 when a snorkeler suggested it as a good spot for deep shore dives. We quickly discovered that this site is spectacular for sea turtles, and an ideal multi-level dive. It can be reached by heading East from Hale'Iwa town. Shortly after passing Wyland Art Gallery and a large, famous shaved ice shop, you'll pass over a small bridge made from two white half-circles of concrete. This bridge was made famous in the Elvis film "Blue Hawaii", I think. Immediately after the bridge, you'll see a parking lot and beach with great facilities: BIG bathrooms, showers, and phones. Stay on the main road, don't go into the beach park yet. Pass by the main parking lot, and just after the bathrooms you'll see a short straight road that heads down to the beach. Go down that road & park. You'll be next to a low wall and nice outdoor showers. On your right is Police Beach; on your left is Hale'Iwa Beach Park. Look to the farthest west point of land you can see. Between you and the land is a small channel-marker buoy. This is your destination, and marks a 45/15m' deep drop-off. Walk to it, dive down, and follow the lower edge or middle of the wall right (eastward). Keep looking in crevices and upward for monstrously big turtles. The drop-off bottoms out near a silty tower, at around 90', after 10 minutes. After this, lift up to about 50~60'/18m, and continue at this depth for 20 minutes. You'll come to a set of sloping channels that lead shoreward. Follow any of these channels, and you will run into at least 10 smallish turtles as you make your safety-stop & work your way 1/2 way back to shore. This approach to land will take about 30 minutes. Go slow, enjoy, and look for cleaning stations & morays. You'll finish in a very shallow grassy plain close to Police Beach. A typical dive will allow you to spot 15~25 turtles. Be wary of jet-skis. Also, I've twice been warned by lifeguards about tiger sharks in the area, and once discovered a dead baby hammerhead shark on the beach there. I've SCUBAed there about 90 times, and never personally seen a shark or anything remotely dangerous. Bring a camera. This site is often divable when all other North Shore sites have prohibitive wave conditions.