Best Chance for Back Wall

[Tunaman68]

So we're headed to Maui in June for our yearly fun in the sun. My daughter and I are going to be diving and really want to do a back wall Molokini trip.

She will have logged around 30 dives, including Kauai, Lanai, Molokini front side (to about 90 feet), Southern Cal, and 18 dives in Cozumel up to 125 fsw doing live boat drift diving over the blue abyss as well as cavern diving in the cenotes. She has excellent buoyancy and killer air consumption (kicks the old man's butt). We will be diving in Kona for a few days prior, so we'll have recent in water time. We went last year with ProDiver and had a great time, but they were her first boat dives so we kept it mellow.

So the questions are:

1) Is this an appropriate dive for us? We snorkeled there a couple of years ago with Blue Water Rafting - very fun! Anything else that we should know about?

2) Which op would be the best to try and get a trip together (conditions allowing of course).

3) We can only go on Friday or Sunday - I know that means we can't go with Lahaina divers as per their schedule and it also means no Molokai trip this time, the wife MUST go to the swap meet this year killing our Saturday for diving.

Thanks all!

 

[smellzlikefish]

Trade in diving for a swap meet-Ouch!

 

[DiveMaven]

Check out Ed Robinson's 3-tank charter on Fridays or the Adventure charter on Sundays. Although there's no gurantee that you'll do the backwall (like with Lahaina Divers), the crew always asks for requests and since these charters are geared toward the more experienced diver, if conditions are decent and you ask, it's likely you'll go to the backwall for at least one dive.

The only reason the backwall is considered an "advanced" dive is because it's a live boat dive and conditions getting back on the boat can sometimes be rough, you have to do a safety stop in blue water without a line, you need good bouyancy control since viz is so good and it's easy to find yourself at 150' deep, and you need sufficient experience in dealing with current and surge that pushes you up and down. Otherwise, it's basically just a wall dive.

 

[baystr]

B&B and request it in advance, they will set the boat up for you, shouldnt be a problem, they are very accomadating

 

[StuartT]

I'd have to agree with Divemaven. In September we did the Friday 3 tank trip and 2 of the 3 dives were on the backside of the crater. It is of course weather and guest dependent as is most Maui boat diving. The first dive was the left side ridge to +- 130 ft to see some grey reef sharks then finished the dive on the wall. 2nd dive was the reefs end side of the crater to about the middle of the back side. We just limited our depth to about 85 ft for that dive to extend our bottom time. Would also recomend nitrox for that trip as you will get much more bottom time especially if your daughter is good on air. The other group of divers on the trip were a bit less experienced but they did the same dives just at shallower depths. Have fun.

 

[TSandM]

As stated, the biggest issues with the back wall are current, surge, and the need to maintain buoyancy without a visible seafloor. Operators will only go there when the ocean conditions are propitious, and they generally won't go there if the majority of the folks on the boat are inexperienced divers.

I wouldn't be heartbroken if you don't get to do it. It's just a wall dive, and we didn't see anything particularly special there.

 

[Tunaman68]

Trade in diving for a swap meet-Ouch!

I know right! But we're getting in 6 tanks in Kona, and probably 6 tanks in Maui so I really can't complain! Happy wife = more trips in the future......

I wouldn't be heartbroken if you don't get to do it. It's just a wall dive, and we didn't see anything particularly special there.

So it's one of those 'gotta have it in the log book' kind of dives in your opinion? Devil's Throat vs another beautiful long dive at Palancar?!?!?

We really loved our dives over at Lanai last year, and reef's end has always been a favorite on Molokini, but have never had an opportunity for back wall.

 

[TSandM]

Of all the dives I've done in Molokini, I thought the ones on the reef ends on either side were much better than the back wall dive. JMO. I think the big draw really is diving on a "bottomless" wall, if you haven't had that experience before. But we had done that in Indonesia, so it wasn't anything new. I understand the back wall used to have a lot of black coral, but we saw almost none of it in the depths where we dove.

 

[DiveMaven]

I have to agree with TSandM about the backwall. It is probably my least favorite dive at Molokini, and agree that both ends (Ene Nui and Reef's End) are typically better dives. On the other hand, I've met folks on many charters who really like the backwall, so if you've never done it, you won't know until you've done it yourself.

 

[Charlie99]

Reef's End drift is by far my favorite dive. It can start inside the crater on a 40' deep mooring, so operators are more willing to do it than the bottomless drop.

The reef's end drift has more variety in topography in that it starts on a ridge, then you are along a series of ledges and slopes, then it eventually ends up on a vertical wall.

Then you get a valet pickup.

The backwall proper gets hit by some pretty strong swells, which can be pretty rough even on stuff 50'+ in depth, so it tends to be more bare rock than other areas.

I've never seen the attraction of EneNui other than seeing the gray sharks at a distance.

I think a lot of divers want to do the backwall simply because of its reputation as an advanced dive. In reality, the only challenge is that one needs to have weighting correct so you can do a live drop over deep water. My nephew did it as his first dive after certifying and thoroughly enjoyed it.