Maui Diving?

[rje634]

If your staying in Kaanapali you may want to seriously think of diving out of Lahaina. The charters leave early morning and if you don't want to have to get up very early leaving from Lahaina will give you a extra hour or so of sleep. I would recommend Lahaina Divers, their boats a large comfortable and pretty fast. The are a large op and it will be hit or miss with the actual amount of divers on the boats. When we were there the average was about 8 divers. The crews were great, we did 8 dives with them and have nothing negative to say. The 3 day of 2 tank dives for $300 is a good deal for boat diving in Hawaii. If you are thinking about Molokini I would highly recommend the back wall.
Additionally we took 3 specialty courses (Boat, Underwater naturalist, and Deep diver) just add $50 to the charter price for each specialty.

Have a great trip...

shark.byte.usa - Yes the back wall is an advanced dive and some ops require advanced cert or proof of deep dives. The depth for dives on the back wall are 80 - 100 FSW which is beyond OW cert limits. The wall is a great dive but it is a sheer wall and requires good bouyancy skills. Talk to the dive op and find out what they require.

 

[kidspot]

Just remember that if you have a tendancy toward seasickness, leaving out of Lahaina to go to Molokini is not worth saving a drive to Kihei... the boat will leave when the water is calm in the morning, but will not get back until early afternoon when the surface chop has usually picked up and waves are getting bigger.

Just a consideration (one I have to keep in mind myself that is )

Also I'd second what Al said about B&B - They frequently will have a 1:4 or better DM to diver ratio - my last trip with them we had 6 DM's on board and 10 divers (if I remember correctly) so they can take the time necessary with new divers to help them out on a more individual basis. We did the backwall with a couple of the DM's leading a group of new divers at a shallower depth (it was an ideal day with little current and they had certified the new divers themselves, so they knew their abilities first) and then another DM leading the other group to about 100fsw (actually 3 DM's in that group).

No matter who you go with though you'll have fun... it's Maui after all!

Aloha, Tim

P.S. If you don't have your AOW yet you may want to consider doing that with B&B as it comes out cheaper than most ops would cost to do a boat dive, plus you get the variety of experience out of it (about $300 for 2 days of boat diving and 1 day of shore diving).

 

[shark.byte.usa]

Looks like either way, transportation or not, I'll have a quality operation to go dive with. And won't be diving the back wall, which I had not intended on doing anyway, because of it's advanced level (I read someplace), as someone else put it, It will still be there next time I go. Thanks for the input.

 

[rje634]

And won't be diving the back wall, which I had not intended on doing anyway

Do inside the crater then, lots of interesting critter to see..

Just remember that if you have a tendancy toward seasickness, leaving out of Lahaina to go to Molokini is not worth saving a drive to Kihei... the boat will leave when the water is calm in the morning, but will not get back until early afternoon when the surface chop has usually picked up and waves are getting bigger.

Very good point and definitely something to keep in mind. Last trip back from Molokini we had 8 - 10 foot swells, in otherwords a 45 minute rollercoaster ride!!!

 

[Parrothead_Diver]

Thank you all for your responces...

I will look into getting myself a small dive flag & float so that I do not have to worry about finding someone with one to dive with.

As for Molokini, I will probably go with Lahaina divers, just because it is convinient. I'll just make sure that there are no cruise ships in port on the day that I go. As for the DM ratio and long boat ride. Those don't really bother me. I am used to California diving where it is BYOB (Bring Your Own Buddy) and swells going over to catalina can usually hit 8-10 ft. Just pop a Bonine the night before and I'm good.

I will stick with my shorty, but will definately pick up a 3mm full suit for my wife as she does have a tendency to get a little colder than I do.

 

[humanFish]

Looks like either way, transportation or not, I'll have a quality operation to go dive with. And won't be diving the back wall, which I had not intended on doing anyway, because of it's advanced level (I read someplace), as someone else put it, It will still be there next time I go. Thanks for the input.

Check out Mike Severns...they'll take good care of you...

 

[DiveMaven]

DiveMe B&B does cater to new divers. I am an instructor and have sent many of my newly certified students to B&B without a problem. Be honest with them on your skill level and they'll take care of you.

I wasn't trying to say or imply that B&B doesn't take care of beginner divers. I was just trying to say that Lahaina Divers seems to gear their entire operation more toward the beginner/vacation diver than the others I mentioned. Lahaina Divers keeps to a schedule of where they dive, whereas the other ops will listen to the divers on the boat and weigh the level of dive experience when choosing sites.

Sorry for any misunderstanding I might have caused.

 

[k8brandt]

Ann, Bruce and I are heading to Maui in Feb 2006 for our 10-yr anniversary. We'll pick your brain next week at CCV!

 

[Maui Bound]

Last year I rented a dive flag from Maui Dive Shop for like $5 for the week.

 

[Damselfish]

One thing about having to get up early for the boats in Maui - coming from anyplace mainland US you're going to have at least 2 hours time difference in your favor. If you don't let yourself get too used to the time change, getting up early is less of a problem. (For us non-morning-people from the East coast, we get to be morning people for once!)