Diver dies at Molokai on Maui dive boat

[VirginiaScubaGuy]

Why would you change your plans?

I guess this incident is making me question the safety of the operations. i would like to hear what the crew had to say.

 

[CuzzA]

I guess this incident is making me question the safety of the operations. i would like to hear what the crew had to say.

Show me the tons of A&I thread's where an op has openly discussed a death on their boat?

 

[BFRedrocks]

I guess this incident is making me question the safety of the operations. i would like to hear what the crew had to say.

I did 8 dives over 3 days with LD about a month after this incident, including the same Molokai hammerhead dive, and have nothing but good things to say about them and their operation. I always felt safe and thought that they handled themselves professionally in all aspects of the trips. If you are headed to Maui to dive, I would still highly recommend LD.

 

[Carl_F]

I guess this incident is making me question the safety of the operations. i would like to hear what the crew had to say.

Absolutely nothing in this thread would dissuade me from diving with LD if I was headed to Maui. Nothing in this thread indicates that the dive op caused or contributed to an initiating incident.

 

[VirginiaScubaGuy]

right! they were hit with the perfect storm of events that was a 1 in you pick the number likelihood. everyone is going to be on their ps and qs.

 

[VirginiaScubaGuy]

ok people, i just signed up for 4 dives with Lahaina Divers. they are the only shop that offers the drift diver specialty (at least as far as i could find) on Maui. i really want to do the back wall of Molokini and i don't have a buddy and have never been drift diving... so i figured i would take the class. also taking a couple shallow dives with them to warm up since it's been a year since i've been in the water. witness me war boys!

 

[horace_magwapple]

I finally created an account so that I could post for this article. I wanted to share my experience with this dive operator and this dive site. Disclosures: I am not a professional diver. I am a former/retired flight instructor and now a small business owner.
I can lend a little more to this string about this dive site-

• LD does cancel this trip (happened to me more than once) because of weather conditions.
  
• The area where the boat picks up divers is not as rough as the channel. However, getting back on the boat is more technical than a standard boat dive. There is a thorough briefing about ingress/egress- this includes a specific procedure they employ for getting divers back on the boat. I was an informed participant on each dive.
• LD asked me about my diving experience before allowing me on the boat for this particular dive site.
  
• This is a more remote area and there is no shelter or harbor for rebreather divers to "hang out" or reach shore. Even with legality aside for a moment, the Captain reasonably cannot leave divers behind.
• The Captain or qualified pilot needs to be above at the helm while loitering in wait to retrieve divers.

I've been diving in Maui on vacations for over ten years. I've gone out with a number of operators on the island. For the last several years I've been a regular customer of LD because they are safe and also where they dive. I recognize the names of the crew mentioned in the article. I've taken my children out with them on discovery dives and would do so again without any hesitation. This site is one of my favorite dives and I plan to do it again.
I think many people would like to understand and learn from what happened for the potential to avoid a repeat. My heart aches for those involved. If there is something that can be learned from this, I hope it will come to light.

 

[Steelyeyes]

My girlfriend and I did that dive and my only complaint was that the sharks didn't show up. Not much anyone can do about that. The boat pick up was "sporty" but they tell you that up front. I think LD runs a safe operation and the major contributing factors to this fatality were the location and lack of ability for the USCG to respond.

 

[shoredivr]

Now I'm curious about how exactly one gets back on the boat.

 

[BFRedrocks]

Now I'm curious about how exactly one gets back on the boat.

The way it was done when I did this dive back in 2016 (2 weeks after the OP incident), was that we all surfaced together as a group and the crew threw out a long (maybe 30 foot-long) rope line into the water that we all grabbed onto. One by one, divers slowly pulled themselves towards the boat and, timing it with the surge as was discussed in our pre-dive briefing, approached the back of the boat to be helped aboard. While it was a bit tricky, I don't recall the actual boarding of the boat to be that much more harrowing than under other rough sea conditions. The key was to stay on the rope and await your turn to proceed towards the boat, and then time it right so you didn't get slammed into the boat.