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Hotels, dive operators, gear, and how to get here are on the Kona Coast location page.
Overview
Iconic night dive off Kona's Garden Eel Cove where divers kneel on a sandy bottom and hold dive lights skyward. The lights attract plankton, and reef mantas with up to 4 m wingspans loop in to feed inches above the group. Reliable encounter rate year-round.
What you'll see
2 species curated- year-roundReef manta ray
- rareHawaiian whitetip reef shark
Sightings evidence
1 record on file- high confidenceReef manta
- Last confirmed
- May 2026
- Recent records
- 256 within 5 km
- Cluster months
- Year-round
Plankton-light feeding aggregation; operator counts on most nights but never guaranteed.
Sources & methodology
How we summarise this
We aggregate confirmed occurrence records from GBIF and OBIS within a fixed radius of each dive site. Occurrence records confirm presence and reveal seasonality clustering, but they DO NOT measure per-dive probability — there is no eligible-effort denominator. We deliberately do not publish a numeric '% chance of sighting' from this data.
Sources
- Global Biodiversity Information Facility — GBIF Secretariat
- Ocean Biodiversity Information System — IOC-UNESCO
- OBIS-SEAMAP — Duke University Marine Geospatial Ecology Lab / OBIS
- iNaturalist — California Academy of Sciences & National Geographic Society
- IUCN Red List of Threatened Species — International Union for Conservation of Nature
- WoRMS — World Register of Marine Species — Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ)
- FishBase — FishBase Consortium
- Atlas of Living Australia — CSIRO / GBIF Australia
- REEF Volunteer Fish Survey — Reef Environmental Education Foundation
Conditions
| Month | Water | Visibility | Current |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jan | 23–25 °C | 20–30 m | mild |
| Feb | 23–25 °C | 20–30 m | mild |
| Mar | 24–25 °C | 20–30 m | mild |
| Apr | 24–26 °C | 20–30 m | mild |
| May | 25–27 °C | 20–30 m | mild |
| Jun | 26–27 °C | 20–30 m | mild |
| Jul | 26–28 °C | 20–30 m | mild |
| Aug | 27–28 °C | 20–30 m | mild |
| Sep | 27–28 °C | 20–30 m | mild |
| Oct | 26–28 °C | 20–30 m | mild |
| Nov | 25–27 °C | 20–30 m | mild |
| Dec | 24–25 °C | 20–30 m | mild |
Season calendar
Peak season highlighted · current month outlined
Gear for this site
Beyond the basic kit- Primary dive light — Light is the entire dive — bring a strong primary.
- Temperate wetsuit — Hawaii water is cooler than Caribbean — night dive amplifies it.
Next step
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