Puako Village End

1/14/13 I've done this dive several times and it continues to be a good one! But on this review, instead of directions and sightings, I would instead like to add a word of caution. My dive buddy (my wife) and I did another one close to this site about 2 hours earlier. So after this rather lengthy surface interval we could see that the surf had picked up considerably. We began entry into this accessible area between the rocks when a big one came in and sucked us both right out of there. My wife was ready to abort the dive right then as she felt a little out of breath and sort of panicky. But, I talked her into continuing as we were already on the way out to the drop off. BIG mistake! I spent the rest of the dive worrying about her and potential problems getting back in without being "skinned alive" on the lava rocks. So obviously, we did make it back, but it was a challenge. There is only the one "out" here and a sort of rip-tide had developed while we were down. The point here is that while you yourself may be a capable and strong swimmer, you MUST make judgments to the dive plan based on the weakest person in your dive party and not the strongest. To fail on this decision could cause serious injury or death. This was the last shore dive we did as a persistently strong sure grew for the next several days making surfers happy and sending shore divers to the dive boats. This was not all bad, on my 2nd day out with the commercial folks, I had a pair of humpback whales (cow & calf) swim about 40' under my fins while I was at a 90' depth. That's one for the books!