ScubaFella43's Dive Log

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.

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.

I dove this site in early Feb and gotta say I did not like it very much. Vis was wicked crappy but I didn't find the walk out and back to be too bad since I parked next to the scuba vans anyway. To be fair, conditions on Oahu lately have been cruddy for the most part anyway.

Update!! I've been back twice, but conditions have been to cruddy to attempt entry both times. I did notice the rope is back so that will make the entry point easier to locate, just giant stride in to the right of the rope. Again, make sure you have a flag, as there's lots of boat traffic here.

Finally did this one from shore. From the entry we went 180 degrees to a red buoy about 100 yards from shore. Once we got to the buoy we descended and headed along the edge of the reef shown in the picture, aka North Reef, in a generally western direction until the air hog (me) was at 1900 lbs. On return we head back the way we came but with a slight twist to the north, surfaced at 700 LBS about 35 meters from the beach. Max depth we got to was 33'. Very active with turtles, on one pinnacle cleaning station there were 5 turtles, bringing the total amount of turtles we saw on this dive to 10. Did not make it out to the actual swim throughs at the caverns but did see some very nice coral formations, some of the best on the island and tons of fish. Humu-humu-nuku-nuku Apua'a are everywhere, even saw them just off the beach while I was putting on my fins. Best to have a dive flag here since there are lots of boats and it is required by law anyway.

Ease of entry rates high because it's a giant stride in. We put our fins on in the water since the shelf is kind of narrow. The group I was with headed out the opposite direction shown on the picture; if you do this watch for current. We also exited where we entered, and that was pretty hard core, since THE ROPE IS GONE. I did not wear a full suit but wish I had since I scrapped up my shins and knees pretty good on exiting. If you want an easier exit swim on down to Koke'e Park. There were Octopi and some very nice areas to explore. Got down to about 50 feet, with great visibility. Rumor has it you can clearly hear whale song here at the right time of the year (December-April). I'll update this when I find out for sure.

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!!

Have done this dive a couple of times now. Last time (September 1st, 2006) was the best so far. Headed out 260 magnetic from the beach and ended up at a very active turtle cleaning station (three turtles stopped in for a wash while I was there). The station was right on top of a very nice swim-through. I also noticed a very large yellow margin moray and a zebra moray plus the usual reef suspects.

Ok, unless you really, really dig long walks with your scuba equipment and equally long surface swims STAY AWAY. I bet this place is a great snorkel because there sure was nothing spectacular about this dive site. I lost my dive knife here too, but thankfully it was a cheapo $15.00 knife.

I did the entry just to the North of this also, called Tracks Beach, straight across from the power plant itself. I like the spots out near the cave mentioned earlier; I spooked a white tip sleeping under an overhang near there. Also saw the red eggs of the Spanish Dancer that look like a rose (very cool), a pair Pencil Eels and other varieties of Morays. And yeah, turtles everywhere.