Maui Next week and Shore/Charter Diving

[scubaboy_mark]

My DW and I will be arriving in Maui next Tuesaday evening.

We are diving with B & B on Thursday (Aug 10th).

On Saturday we are hoping to do some shore dives with howard4113 (and his family?) from this board.

We are staying at the Wailea Marriott.
We also have all equipment (except tanks/weights)

We would like to book a scuba charter to Lanai and do the Cathedrals and have a few ?'s. Going to Lanai and diving the cathedrals is a must? !

- Are there shops that only take exprerienced divers to Lanai? (me- mstd, DW-rescue)

I've read various threads on 'bottom' time. My wife and I generally dive EAN and while we do not push limits either way, we'd rather not come up with half a tank of air/EAN.

- Should we book with a shop in Kihei? or is it worth the drive to Lahaina for a shorter boat ride?


Thanks for your advice!
-Mark

My wife and I will definetly be checking out Mulligans!

 

[Scottri]

I did Lanai with Extended Horizons in Lahaina. They were pretty good but they didn't make any allowances for experienced divers. We were all DM's and Instructors but we got the same bottom time as everyone else on the boat.

I go to Kehei every year and I usually dive with Mike Severns or Ed Robinsons for boat dives and I like Maui Dreams for renting tanks and weights for shore diving.

 

[DiveMaven]

Ed Robinsons goes out to Lanai once a week. All the charters we've done with them we've been allowed to dive our tanks or NDLs, whichever comes first. I don't believe they have Nitrox so you'd have to bring your own tanks.

You definitely don't want to go to Lanai with Lahaina Divers if you're looking for an op that caters to the experienced diver. They are a great group of DMs and instructors and run a quality operation, but are geared toward the inexperienced or occasional diver IMO. We got certified and got our AOW with them, so we do our Lanai charters with them because of the 10% discount. We're also given some leeway to dive more of our own profiles because they know us well, so that helps. We just "tune down" our expectations and enjoy the dives....which really isn't that hard to do since we love Lanai.

Our real preference for a charter is Ed Robinson's 3-tank Adventure Charter. Not only is it more to our diving preference, but as long as we have to drive from Kaanapali down to Kihei, we might as well do 3 tanks!!

Keep in mind though that you might be somewhat limited on bottom time as there is only so much time for surface intervals. The ops typically want to get both tanks done and everyone back on board before the trades pick up and get back to the ramp before the water is too rough.

 

[scubaboy_mark]

We arrive Tuesday night the 8th and out Weds the 16th

Looks like Ed Robinsons is out for us

Ed Robinsons goes out to Lanai once a week. .

 

[KrisB]

I understand that Extended Horizons out of Lahaina gets high marks, too...

You really *don't* want to do Lanai with ERDA -- the boat ride is more than three times longer than from Lahaina (the captain said 29 miles vs. 9 miles).

Also: ERDA will provide EAN -- they just started in the springtime. I think it's an extra $10 per tank though... If you're doing lots of EAN diving, it's probably worth getting a fill-card at Maui Dreams, IIRC, it's discounted to $8/tank.

I, personally, will not be diving with ERDA again, simply because of a poor attitude from the management (read: Ed Robinson) when I approached him with some safety and legal concerns that I had after doing three charters with them in the springtime.