Chris' Dive Experiences: Pelagic Magic & The Manta Dive Kona, Hawaii (Part 1)

Photo Courtesy of Leslie Alstrand

After a nice short flight from Lindbergh Field, we landed at Kona International Airport paved on top of a large old lava flow with the beautiful Pacific Ocean just below the runway. Kona’s airport is a throwback to how airports used to be and many tropical ones still are. It is open air with roof coverings to provide shade and a place to stay dry during a shower. Stepping out of the airplane onto the stairs instantly relaxes you as you feel the warm sun mixed with the fresh sea breeze and enjoy the view of the contrast between the lava fields and the blue of the Pacific Ocean. On this trip we were doing a dive that is well known and raved about “The Manta Dive” and a dive you hear about off and on but not too many divers do it “Pelagic Magic” dive.

First up would be the Pelagic Magic dive. We met at the shop for the dive briefing in the classroom a couple of hours prior to the trip departure. Lesley and I were being joined by 3 other divers; all of us were from southern California. This was the lengthiest dive briefing we had ever encountered to this point in our diving lives. The briefing included the usual boat safety info, a fish and creature id using both books and a video, but also had very unique briefings on the dive. The way the Pelagic Magic or black water dive is carried out is the boat drives a couple of miles out at sun down and stops when the ocean floor reaches depths of around 2,500 feet. Instead of an anchor the boat deploys a parachute underwater allowing it to drift at a slow smooth rate. Each diver is clipped to his own weighted line that is around 50 feet deep, allowing each diver to move up and down in the water column as he wishes.

After signing some paper work and being assigned some nice big LED lights, it was time to go dive. The boat's motor came to a stop and the deck lights came on as our DM called out that it was time to gear up. As we were finishing readying ourselves, the boat deck was a very busy place with diver rope lines being laid out and a huge parachute being deployed.

We huddled together for one last pre-dive briefing to make sure we were ready and to give us a couple of last minute tips. These included: “if you see a huge white thing toward the front of the boat that’s not moving, don’t have a heart attack it’s the parachute that we’re using”, “if you get freaked out, don’t be embarrassed, this dive isn’t everyone’s cup of tea and it happens all the time”, or “if you get cold, make your way up your line; after your safety stop, we’ll have a warm towel and hot chocolate waiting for you”, and last but not least “please don’t pee in your suits, that seems to attract our resident tiger and oceanic sharks”. "Ready to go?"

Lesley and I were both very excited mixed with a bit of nerves. We stepped up to the swim step one by one and were clipped onto to our rope. Lesley and I would be on one side of the boat and the three other divers on the other side; all spread out allowing us a lot of room to move around and not blind each other with our lights.

I did my giant stride off the boat. Dropping down into the the black abyss, I followed my line to the 50 foot mark. Soon after hitting that mark all the lights from the boat were turned off allowing all of our attention to be focused on what our flash light beams found. Because of the great amount of spacing between Lesley, I and all the other divers, each of us facing outward from the boat's hull, and because we were each at different depths, I only saw a brief flash of light now and then from the other divers. In fact, even though we were on the same side of the boat, I only saw Lesley once during our whole dive. 

While floating in 2,500 feet of water I was amazed bythe amount of life that moved by us during our 68 minute dive. During this dive I spied countless types of jellies and salps. Many of them defied logic as to how something living should look. And how they moved, some even unrolling themseleves from a ball to catch prey and feed, was just fascinating. All of this hapening while they put on a light show on a miniature scale in our light beams while they drifted by me on their hunt for zooplankton.

Toward the end of our dive a large school of Hawaiian reef squid came by using our lights to chase their prey. They seemed to check me out at a distance before disappearing again into the dark.

This dive showed me how vast the ocean is and how much life there is other then sharks in the pelagic zone. Although we didn’t get to see any sharks or a rare pelagic sea horse, we ended up seeing half of the species in the pelagic ID book that we looked at before the dive. This was a very unique dive that I had fun experiencing.

Experience the dive for yourself with this video from Jack's Diving Locker: