Dive Review of Blue Wilderness/Mauna Lani in
Hawaii/Big Island

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Blue Wilderness/Mauna Lani: "Good Dive Op on Kohala Coast", Sep, 2014, by Cindy Edgerton, WA, US ( Reviewer 6 reports). Report 7788.
No photos available at this time
Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations	N/A	Food	N/A
Service and Attitude	N/A	Environmental Sensitivity
Dive Operation		Shore Diving	N/A
Snorkeling	N/A
Overall Rating
Value for $$
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	We have been diving in Hawaii (Maui, Kauai and the Big Island) several times. We are "dive every day you can" divers. We prefer the Big Island due to more coral than the other Hawaiian islands, which should mean more fish. Unfortunately the prolific spear fishing in Hawaii has removed a lot of their larger fish from the reef, and aquarium collectors have taken a lot of the unusual smaller fish. It seemed even worse this year. In the past we stayed in Kona and went diving out of Honokohau Harbor, where the operators generally go to dive sites near the harbor or south toward Kona. We wanted to do/see something different so stayed up in the Kohala area and dove with Kohala Divers. After three days diving with Kohala Divers, we decided to change to Blue Wilderness (BW) - and we liked them better. Blue Wilderness uses a purpose-built boat that looks like a RIB but has a hard bottom and pontoon sides, and two good ladders. It was much faster than the Kohala Divers boat so we were able to meet a half hour later at 8. There was a bucket for cameras and you could store things under your seat. The one complaint with the boat was that there was not a lot of shade available, but we made it work. Their preferred method of entry was that they would put your BC over the side of the boat, hooked to a cable. Divers would get into the water and gear up there. For the return, you would take off your BC and climb one of their two ladders. If divers preferred, they could do a back roll into the water. During the surface interval, Blue Wilderness provided home-made cookies (macadamia chocolate chip or passionfruit bars), which were a step up from the Costco snacks that Kohala Divers offered. There were more caves, caverns and swim-throughs from Puako south than we found while diving with Kohala Divers (who generally only go as far south as Puako), so the topography was more interesting. There was also more coral in this area than up north and we saw more larger fish. This could have been because we also went a little deeper, though no dives exceeded 100 feet. Blue Wilderness maintained a maximum of 4 divers per dive master and sometimes it worked out that it was just the two of us with our DM Sam. Sometimes we joined the other dive masters, and sometimes took an opposite route. Sam had excellent eyes and was great at finding things - and also noticing what fish we were interested in. And even though we had been to Hawaii several times, Sam managed to show us some new nudibranches and other interesting critters. We were lucky enough to have Sam as our dive-master for the remainder of our trip. Diving in Hawaii is disappointing as a result of spear fishing and aquarium collection, but if you are in Hawaii and want to dive on the Kohala coast, we recommend Blue Wilderness.
Websites	Blue Wilderness
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	251-500 dives
Where else diving	Fiji, Bonaire, Palau, Hawaii
Closest Airport	Kona	Getting There
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny	Seas	calm
Water Temp	78-81°F / 26-27°C	Wetsuit Thickness	3
Water Visibility	60-80 Ft/ 18-24 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	yes
Enforced diving restrictions	[Unspecified]
Liveaboard?	no	Nitrox Available?	yes
What I Saw
Sharks	None	Mantas	None
Dolphins	Schools	Whale Sharks	None
Turtles	> 2	Whales	None
Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):
Corals		Tropical Fish
Small Critters		Large Fish
Large Pelagics	N/A
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter	N/A	Boat Facilities
Overall rating for UWP's		Shore Facilities	N/A
UW Photo Comments	Camera bucket on boat

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Dive Review of Blue Wilderness/Mauna Lani in Hawaii/Big Island

Blue Wilderness/Mauna Lani: "Good Dive Op on Kohala Coast", Sep, 2014,

Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Overall Rating

Reporter and Travel

Dive Conditions

Dive Policy

What I Saw

Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):

Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Dive Review of Blue Wilderness/Mauna Lani in
Hawaii/Big Island