Scuba Diving Vacations

I went down the hill today to check on what all's going on at the bay. When we had our earthquake back in October and they had landslides, the state basically shut the bay down. It's been reopened for recreational use, but it is more limited than before the quake.

The hiking trail down to the bay has been officially closed for now. The DLNR has had an officer down at the wharf and park much of the time. Someone has put up informative plaques (one is pictured) down at the bay, which is quite nice, and they also have a booth down at the old wharf with this informative video (I linked this back in September, but here it is again) on snorkeling and critter care. They've set up buoys in the bay approximately 100' from shore in front of the monument and inside towards the beach. No boats/kayaks/snorkelers are allowed to land or swim within the buoys and they had a boat out there enforcing that. I guess this is supposed to go on indefinitely for now. Kayaks and snorkelers are allowed in the water, as long as you stay outside the buoys.

I suspect they are also cracking down on improper interaction with the dolphins. That has been a hot button topic here for a number of years, and now that the DLNR has a boat down in the area I suspect it'll be enforced. Last month there was a whale that turned up off Kailua and was basically killed by sharks - several boats got near to it to film it and there are rumors that there's going to be trouble for the photo/video guys and the captains of the boats as far as getting close in violation of the marine mammal protection act. We'll see if there's any fallout from that.

So basically the bay is open for recreational kayak use, the beach has been reopened, but don't expect to get all the way over to the monument.

Aloha,

Steve