Haleiwa, Hawaii, United States

Three Tables

Three Tables takes its name from three flat-topped lava platforms that emerge from the surface just offshore of the Pupukea Marine Life Conservation District on Oahu's North Shore. Like neighbouring Sharks Cove, the site is dive-able only during the calm summer months when the north-facing coast is not pounded by Pacific swell. From shore, divers swim out and drop down between and around the tables in 5 to 12 metres of depth onto a mixed sand and lava-rock bottom punctuated by ledges and small caves. The conservation district has been in place since 1983 and the fish life is correspondingly rich: green sea turtles, white tip reef sharks, octopus, large schools of convict tang and yellow tang, milletseed butterflyfish, spotted and zebra moray eels, scrawled filefish and the brilliantly coloured state fish, the reef triggerfish. The sand patches between tables are good places to find Hawaiian sole and the occasional banded boxer shrimp under coral heads.