Cheek-lined wrasse (Oxycheilinus digramma)
Date taken: February 14, 2012 at 11:01am
Dive site: Stoney Mesas, Kona-side, Hawaii

One of my favorite places to dive is Hawaii; specifically, the Kona-side of the big Island of Hawaii. Even more specifically, I love to dive Kona south to South Point. However, few boats travel there except the Kona Aggressor. As a result, she's one of my favorite boats to live aboard. She's relatively small (only 14 divers) and as the only Hawaiian liveaboard, she travels to spots that few other boats go. It's also fairly easy to get to with regular flights from LAX/SFO and if you actually add up the costs of a land-based operation + food + diving, it's a good deal for diving Hawaii and it's some of the best diving Hawaii has to offer. Wow, you'd think I were paid for that but I wasn't. It's just truly a magical place and I recommend that most try it out! If you really want to eat, dive, and sleep your way to diving Hawaii - the Kona Aggressor is the way to do it. If you're going as a family / group trip with other non-divers, you can't go wrong diving with Jack's Diving Locker (in Kona) and with them I can't recommend enough their Manta Specialty course (with @manta_man Keller Laros) and their Pelagic Magic course (with @JeffLeicher) - both of which I've done and absolutely loved. You could easily do both... arrive in Hawaii a few days before the Aggressor trip, do some specialty courses with Jack's and then hop on the Aggressor. If you want to be even more adventurous - check out WHOA (Wild Hawaii Ocean Adventures) they're ABSOLUTELY fantastic for freediving and checking out the blue water magic that can't be missed in Hawaii.

OMG - I have to stop talking about this. It's been a couple of years since I was last in Kona and now I'm desperate to book a trip there. It's been too long! One of the things I remember most (and really love) about diving in Hawaii is how inquisitive some of the critters are. These wrasse and many butterflyfish often swam right up to my port... A few times, I've had to swim away from them! This guy was exactly that case.