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Turtle Heaven
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08/08/2004 Seth Bareiss (Avg: 4.15 Review) - 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.
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Averages for Turtle Heaven (1=worst,
5=best) |
Number of reviews for this site: 1
85-1-4-32
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4.00
5.00
2.00
3.00
4.15