Few people can disagree that Hawaii boasts one of the top diving destinations in the world. It's amazingly diverse ecosystems contain much marine life that can be found nowhere else in the world. Add to that, warm waters, volcanoes and tropical rain forests, well, you have found a heaven on earth. One of my diving disappointments, not that I have many, is that so many dive sites seem to blend together with similar topography, coral life and access.

Now Hawaii, especially the Kohala Coast on the Big Island is a scuba divers dream and boasts an index of unique dive sites. From walls, drop offs, and drifts, to warm shallow macro enthusiast dives.

Here is a list of a few dive sites located on the Kohala coast off the Big Island provided by one of our Hawaii Dive Centers.

South Kohala - Big Island Hawaii Sites

Puako cleaning station - 25-75 feet - The almost always active turtle cleaning station. On calm days this can be visited from shore. Give the turtles some space and respect as though you are visiting them at the spa. Yellow tangs, damsels and wrasses can be seen here too, picking parasites from their flippered friends!

Garden Eels - One of the shallowest spots you can see rows of garden eels swaying like noodles in the current at about 65-75 feet. Beyond that the terrain is fascinating with swim threws, moray eels, turtles and more!

Puako Point - 10-100 feet - It really is out on a point: The mooring is set on a finger that almost comes to the surface and has swim threws below. A short swim out and the reef drops away to a steep ledge that will keep you looking at your gauges as you descend to the abyss. Great spot to see rays and octopus.

Turtle Mound - 15-60 feet - Here is another active turtle cleaning station with huge palani schools as well as lava tubes galore. Don’t be surprised if your gauge never goes beyond 40’: Most of the good stuff is shallow here!

North Kohala, Big Island Hawaii Dive Sites

Inside Crystal Cove - 20-40 feet - With a black sand bottom that hosts isolated coral heads this is a haven for critters, a great site for the beginner diver or for those who love macro life and coral gardens.

Outside Crystal Cove - 40-90 feet ~ The deeper end of Crystal cove holds tall pinnacles and islands of coral surrounded by sand. It is also an invertebrate wonderland, and there is a good chance at seeing our resident pod of spinner dolphins or the occasional eagle or manta ray.

The Lava Dome - 30-90 feet - The most unique coral head on the coast! Standing about 30’ high the lava dome is a volcanic rock covered in plate and knob coral. It is an amazing sight to see a coral head that is hundreds of years old. Beyond the dome, coral fingers stretch out to a ledge we call Pink Floyd. This is where schooling fish like to congregate, blue dragon nudibranchs are common, and the big guys often cruise by. 

Frog Rock - 20-70 feet - Lava tubes are a big feature here with lots of local critters inside. There are also nice coral fingers and a ton of juvenile fish.

Big Sandies - 15-70 feet - This is an ocean swimming pool! White sand rivers at only twenty feet are surrounded by healthy coral and good fish variety: Great for newbies! The more advanced divers can cruise out to the finger that leads to a wall where fish schools peruse and octopus, shells and other invertebrates dwell.

Ulua Cave - 25-90 feet - Ulua features a large swim thru home to our very own sponge crab (Bob), Spanish dancer nudibanches and their egg sacs, and frog fish. Further from the boat the reef drops making a nice vantage to see bigger things cruise by (Dolphins, rays, whales and monk seals have all been seen here) great night dive too!

Horseshoe Reef - 20-60 feet - As the name implies, this site is formed by coral reef that is shaped into a horseshoe with ledges and lava tubes below. Resident white tip reef sharks like to snooze under the ledges in the day time. Check out our favorite swim through “the kitchen sink”: You will see how it got its name when you go down the drain.

Black Point Caves - 30-70 feet - A healthy ledge of coral that leads to lava tubes and ledges. There is a commonly seen resident white tip reef shark here and plentiful octopi abound!

Black Point - 40-90 feet - Prone to strong currents, the visibility is always astounding! An advanced site with deep drops and intense fish life, the schooling pyramid butterflies are a photographers dream come true!!

Also, be sure to check out our Divers Forum, Special Offers section and our Dive Centers and Resorts section on the website.

Beautiful Palau is an island in the Pacific Ocean, about 500 miles east of the Philippines. It gained iindependence in 1994, making it one of the youngest nations. The name of Palau itself is relatively unknown among travelers... expect for divers!

With 200 islands plus, Palau offers some of the most spectacular diving sites in the world. The underwater world here is uniquely amazing, with almost everything from vertical walls, channels, underwater tunnels and caves to lagoons. The variety of fish here is surpassed by few destinations around the globe, and there are plenty of sharks and mantas. 

Wreck diving amateurs will be delighted by the unique wrecks of Japanese warships and planes from WWII. The visibility here is typically excellent, although during the rainy months from July to October can be less and the access to the best diving sites can sometimes not be possible for up to a week. Water temperature typically maintains a consistent 27-29 degrees Celsius year round.

Palau can definitely be enjoyed on a liveaboard charter quite nicely.

Peleliu island,Is located about 23 miles south of Koror island. Peleliu is a small reef island and is only about 5sq miles in size. Population is only about 700. Palau was a colony of Germany from 1899 to 1914. At that time, Germany developed industries like  phosphate mining and copra harvesting. The Japanese took over in 1915 and continued until 1944. It was during this time that Palauan culture went through its most radical transformation. Japanese expanded the commercial ventures started by the Germans and developed many more.

Peleliu was also the site of one of the bloodiest battles of WW2. In two months of fighting on Peleliu,there were  over 20,000 casualties, more than todays population of all Palau. During the fighting, Peleliu’s forests were bombed and burned to the ground. Today the island is alive tropical foliage that have grown up to cover the battle scars.

If you get a chance to dive around Palau, consider yourself lucky, as most divers don’t get a chance to visit and explore the underwater world of Palau.

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The Lincoln-Way Central Environmental Action Club is hosting a special event featuring Annie Crawley, on Wednesday, February 15, 2012 to focus attention on the issue of ocean pollution. The event will be featured in the Lee Rosenquist Theater, Lincoln-Way Central High School, 1801 E. Lincoln Highway, New Lenox.

Journalist, underwater filmmaker, field biologist, scuba diving instructor, and Captain, Annie Crawley will visit Lincoln-Way Central from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. to share stories, photographs, and videos from expeditions to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Galapagos, Palau, California and more.

The program will also take the audience on a scientific journey to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch to learn about the largest ecosystem on the planet with Project Kaisei and Scripps Institution of Oceanography, noted Catherine Sieber, chemistry teacher and sponsor for the Central Environmental Action Club.

Lincoln-Way Central student Logan Klein helped to coordinate the event. He contacted Annie Crawley after seeing her as a speaker for an event he had attended. According to Catherine, “he is the one that made this event happen.”

Logan stated, Annie Crawley isn’t just some run-of-the-mill presenter. She knows what she is talking about and is immensely dedicated to what she does. Her stories and knowledge can captivate any audience and change the way they view the ocean. Annie Crawley is my inspiration to pursue my dreams and to make a change.

Admission to the event is free for the public. Donations will be accepted. The proceeds from the event will go towards Oceana. Oceana is the largest international organization working solely to protect the world’s oceans. This presentation is appropriate for all ages.

by: Stacy Holland

Underwater geocaches can be found in the waters of more than a dozen countries, from Indonesia to South Africa to Spain, but "there's just not that many of them out there right now," said Chris Waggoner, a veteran police officer from Gainesville, Florida, and an avid geocacher. About 100 geocaches around the world today require scuba gear, according to the Geocaching.com database, and just over half of them were listed in the past two years.

Geocaching is a hunt for a hidden "geocache", basically a container with a logbook. Some caches hold a trinket or treasure. The person who finds the treasure must sign the logbook and return the geocache to its original location. If you take something from the cache, you must leave something of equal or great value. Geocaching coins and so-called "travel bugs" (dog tags) have tracking codes on them, so they can be moved from cache to cache.

Scuba or underwater geocaching follows the same rules as the terrestrial-based game, but includes some challenges. Land-based geocaching uses GPS coordinates. With scuba / underwater geocaching, visual clues are added because it's difficult to give an exact GPS location on the water. The cache must also be submersible and must withstand water pressure and corrosion; logbooks are waterproof.

Geocaching experiences are shared online on sites such as Geocaching.com or OpenCaching.com run by Garmin, which makes GPS devices. Clues and rating systems are added, including the level of difficulty in finding the cache. For example, does the hunt require (for land hunts) biking or mountain climbing, or special scuba diving equipment (for water-based hunts)?

Geocaching is not regulated beyond what is approved by the community or volunteer reviewers on geocaching sites. Guidelines require permission before placing a cache on private property or on protected federal lands, and caches cannot be buried. There's no age requirement, so families can go hunting together.

There is no record of accidents or deaths associated with underwater geocaching. But there have been deaths among land-based geocachers from things like heart attacks and falls.

Scuba Diving / Underwater geocaching is one part of a big hobby, and geocaching overall is growing. Geocaching.com started in 2000 with 75 caches worldwide and now lists more than 1.6 million caches.

by Suzette LaBoy

Imagine fighting for your life after being sucked into a boat propeller. On a scuba diving holiday in Egypt, Maurice Abrahams, suffered horrific injuries in this exact horrific situation – and only avoided decapitation due to the blades blocking his oxygen tank. The 48-year-old was trapped under the propeller for approximately 30 horrific seconds as the water around him filled with blood.

Reliving the terrifying ordeal, he stated  “It felt like a lifetime. The pain was indescribable and I thought I was definitely going to die. My mask was ripped off and I was actually screaming under the water.” Maurice was rushed to the hospital after losing a large amount of blood from cuts to his legs and broken bones, including his hip and pelvis. 

Doctors had to appeal for blood from the other guests at the hotel where he was was staying in the resort of El Gouna to save him. He spent three days fighting for life and spent weeks in hospital before finally being allowed home. 

HIs broken bones have been pieced back together with metal pins but he faces months of physiotherapy to help him learn to walk again and is still in constant pain. Maurice – who lives with wife and 2 children in Whitefield - had been on an annual scuba diving trip with friends from the Red Fins diving group. 

The pals, all experienced divers, were on the second day of a holiday and had chartered a boat to explore a coral reef. A second boat, carrying divers and sunbathers, arrived in the area as Maurice and his friends were heading back to the surface. Maurice was just below the surface when the second boat started its propeller. He was sucked backwards into the blades which hit his tank just inches from his unprotected neck. They then sheared through his bottom and legs. 

Maurice said: “I had no idea what was happening before I hit the propeller. I saw the blood in the water and that's when I though it was all over. God knows how it missed my head – my tank got hit just a few inches from my neck.” Maurice's pals were able to keep him conscious as they rushed back to shore. He was treated in hospital before being flown back to England, where he had five weeks' further treatment at North Manchester General. 

Maurice said: “The doctors said they had never seen a hip injury like it. Most people are killed in propeller accidents – I'm so lucky to be alive. I'm now basically held together with pins and screws. I want to thank my wife – I couldn't have got through this without her.”

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The people of Dahab, in South Sinai, Egypt invite you to attend the second Dahab International Festival of Water Sports, Culture and Desert Adventure on the 14th – 20th April 2012. 

This week long event has been organized by members of the Dahab Community to showcase what this beautiful small resort town has to offer. The town of Dahab is just 90 kilometers North of Sharm El Sheikh, originally a small fishing village which grew into a tourist town. The town features a rich life of coral reefs in the Red Sea, amazing views, rugged mountains, desert landscapes and a multicultural population. The beaches are lined with excellent restaurants and many places to relax. The festival brings together all aspects of the activities, water sports, culture and adventure’s possible in Dahab. 

The Red Sea – Discover Our Water World Dive the Depths of Dahab – There will be free try dives for beginners and free guided dives for experienced divers. Explore the world famous Blue Hole, or the remote sites in Ras Abu Gallum on a camel diving adventure. During the festival there will be buoyancy competitions, talks from Dahab’s expert divers, conservation seminars and much more fun to be had under the Red Sea. 

Going Deep On A Single Breath – Join Lotte Ericson and experienced Free Divers on learn how to dive down on a single breathe of air. Try free diving sessions will be available as well as competitions with the experts. 

Windsurf Over the Rea Sea – Take a board and sail away over the Red Sea around the Lagoon area of Dahab and enjoy the waters in a different way. Free taster sessions, lessons and wind surf fun. Watch competitions with some of Wind Surfing’s International talents, enjoy watching their tricks as they play with the wind. 

Flying with the Wind – Kite Surfing is becoming more and more popular in Dahab and it is one of the most amazing water sports to watch. Throughout the festival there will be kite surfing taster sessions, competitions and loads of fun. 

All in all, if your a lover of the Red Sea, scuba diving, or any activity on the water, the Dahab Festival of Watersports is a must experience. Visit their facebook page and search our Dive Centers and Resorts Red Sea section on the website.

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