The Hawaiian Islands conjure up exotic visions of white sand beaches, blue waters, great scenery and a friendly and welcoming culture. As the 50th state in the USA, it is unique. And the waters below these islands are also special, with more endemic life than perhaps any dive destination in the world. In this comprehensive book, the first of its kind, we pick the 50 Best Dives in Hawaii and give you the inside information on each fascinating spot.
From the best places to see manta rays, sharks, fish schools and odd, rare, tiny critters to the amazing blackwater dives in the inky dark of the night, you'll travel with the pros to experience the cream of the crop in the seas off Hawaii's shores.
Authors Tim Rock and David Fleetham are internationally published photojournalists and authors, with decades of Hawaiian dive experience. Fleetham resides in Maui and works as a professional ocean photojournalist and Rock resides in the western Pacific and makes frequent trips to Hawaiian waters. Their years of experience make this one of the most informative and beautifully illustrated books ever written about Hawaii's undersea resources.
The "50 Best Dives" series is for active divers and armchair travelers alike. It takes the reader to not only the popular spots in a region but also some of the lesser dived yet most fascinating spots. This book is a veritable candy store of the finest diving and snorkeling Hawaii has to offer and gives you a great tour of the waters of this special state.
Fleetham, David: - David Fleetham was born in Vancouver, Canada in 1958. He grew up in Ontario, Canada just outside of Toronto and in his last year of high school he learned to scuba dive in a man-made lake. Soon after he purchased an Ikelite housing and a Minolta SLR camera and spent three months in the crystal clear waters of the Caribbean. With his eyes wide open he returned to land locked Ontario just long enough to pack his bags and move back to Canada's west coast. Here David worked in several dive businesses, became a scuba instructor and continued focusing on his passion: underwater photography. His first published photo was during this time. It was a cover on Diver magazine where David's images and articles still appear to this date. He acknowledges Neil McDaniel (then editor of Diver magazine) and his photography as one of his first influences: In 1986 David left Vancouver for the island of Maui, Hawaii where he again worked in various dive charter businesses and earned a USCG Captain's license, all the while shooting and submitting his underwater images to magazines and businesses. David was approached by his first stock agency shortly after coming to Hawaii and now has galleries and agents in over 50 countries that reproduce his images thousands of times each year. From Hawaii, David has been on assignments to 22 locations in Indonesia, The Galapagos Islands, Saipan, Truk Lagoon, Fiji, Thailand, Myanmar (Burma), Palau, Yap, Guam, Kwajalein Atoll, Pohnpei, the Philippines, Honduras, Bahamas, Australia, the Sea of Cortez, the Red Sea, the Socorro Islands and back to the cold waters of British Columbia. Prior to receiving his own assignments from National Geographic, the magazine hired David to escort professional underwater photographer David Doubilet while on assignment in Hawaii. Fleetham recognizes Doubilet's work as another influence on his career:
Rock, Tim: - "TIM ROCK specializes in the imagery of the marine world and is a publisher, author, photographer and owner of a photo gallery on Guam in the western Pacific. He attended the journalism program at the University of Nebraska - Omaha (UNO) and has been a professional broadcast and print photojournalist for 30 years. In April 2017, he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the UNO School of Communications. Tim was also a Guam Delegate for the Visual Arts (still photography and video) for the 2016 Pacific Festival of the Arts and he is a Guam Visitor's Bureau Hafa Adai Spirit Award winner. In his early years, his news photography appeared on CBS, ABC, NBC and CNN. The majority of his career has been in the Western and Indo Pacific reporting on environmental and conservation issues. He has won the prestigious Excellence in the Use of Photography from the Society of Publishers in Asia. His TV show Aquaquest Micronesia was an ACE award finalist. He also lists many other awards for documentaries, television shows, photography and writing. He works as a correspondent for numerous Pacific Rim magazines. He is a Lonely Planet author and contributor to over a sixteen Lonely Planet/Pisces series guides and also has his own series of guides and coffee table books available on Amazon and Apple as print and e-books. Rock has done work for National Geographic and has been published in National Geographic Publications, Smithsonian, GEO, Terre Sauvage and numerous top tier books and magazines. Rock's photographic work is represented by Getty Images Lonely Planet Collection, SeaPics, Polaris Images, WaterFrame, MantaRay Publishing and his own Double Blue Images, a Guam-based agency, and by other top photographic agents worldwide."
