Uahi Island Grill - Kailua

I try to check off at least one thing off my bucket list every time I travel, and Hawaii was no exception. I had always been dying to take a night dive, and I couldn't imagine a prettier place to take the plunge.

Experienced drivers rave about the rush of embracing the blackness, and treading water over a pitch-black sea armed with only a small flashlight makes every little pufferfish look like a hidden treasure.

I look for the same thrill when looking for places to eat, and after all the hype about Uahi from Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives, walking in the door and snagging a worn wooden table was the stomach-dropping equivalent of a descent into watery darkness.

I was able to see several snippets of sea life so the dive wasn't entirely a waste. A puffer fish flew by, trumpet fish followed the light, and a wizened turtle watched between the rocks. The Furikake Calamari snuck up on me unexpectedly, like the slipper lobster than paused upon a rock. The furikake was just as hard to find, but the calamari illuminates from beneath, and it makes a decent plate of comfort food over a bed of rice.

I hate the taste of seawater, but the locally-bottled Mango Soda slid down my briny throat in gulps.

The dive started strong, but I lost a fin halfway through. Trying to find a fin in the pitch dark will get you as lost as the flavor in the Grilled Fish, a dried-out mahi mahi with a red curry garnish. The mahi turned to rubber, and it was grilled in no seasoning, relying only on the insufficient quantity of underlying red curry to fill in for flavor. The papaya salad was actually a few shreds on papaya and they forgot the seasoning on that one too.

The compass got stuck, and we ended up lost. And by the end of the half-mile swim to shore, I was exhausted and wondering why I ever endeavored to do this dive. The Korean Steak Salad had a perfectly seared steak for a proteinaceous power-up. Unfortunately, the rest of the salad was probably guided by the same compass.The kimchee viniagrette tasted like viniagrette and viniagrette alone, and the greens are just as generic.

Well between my disastrous night dive and a disappointing night at Uahi, I've become a lot less inclined to buy into other people's raving. It'll be a long time before I dive without the scorching sun, and it'll be even longer before I watch Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives.