Maui Recommendations

[DiveMaven]

I've never had a dive shorter than about 50 minutes with Lahaina Divers. They've always been very good about grouping divers and letting those who are good on air stay longer in the water.

But they do run AL72 tanks, which shortens the dives for most divers naturally.

 

[Bappelt]

I agree, I've never been limited in my dive time with Lahaina Divers.

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

Not every dive is the same; not every dive site is the same.

Anybody dived the Carthaginian with Lahaina Divers?

The vast majority of the divers I have guided at Second Cathedral could not last longer than 40 minute at that dive site on an AL80, much less a 72.

The first dive with Extended Horizons is a set profile, and pretty much never longer than 40 minutes.

EH's Suunto Zoop's are regularly close to deco at the end of the 60 minute 2nd dive.

The guide will start ascending the group at the planned elapsed time. If you have your boat diving act together you could easily be among the first of your group to splash. If you are an experienced diver you could easily be allowed to drop before the guide.

If you are clueless, you could follow the max depth, max time and min air in tank parts of the set plans and end up in deco before the max time limit for the second dive.

If you stay way shallower than the guide for both dives, you could end up just barely in the yellow with nearly a half a tank left.

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

If you have a phone you could have called them and asked them. If you are on the West Side and have a rental car you could have stopped into the Lahaina Divers shop and asked them in person. Or you could hang out at Mala Ramp around noon and ask guests as they get off the Extended Horizons boat.

I'm vacationing in Maui now and just heard that Lahaina Divers caps your bottom time at 40 min regardless of the air in your tank. That they don't do a group air check, they just signal 40 min and surface. Made me steer clear of them - though I don't know if it is true - I seem to recall reading something like that on this board though. Booked my Lanai trip with Extended Horizons which has plenty of recommendations on this site. Hadn't heard that they had a smaller boat though - will let you know how it goes.

Let's see here; you seem to be connected to the internet somehow.

Lahaina Divers operates Maui's largest, most comfortable and most reliable boats: Dominion and Dauntless.

Dominion and Dauntless are 46 feet in length and were built in Slidell, Louisiana. Each vessel has twin Cummins 430 horsepower diesel engines and is USCG certified. We take a max of 24 divers on each vessel.

The 36' Dive Vessel Extended Horizons, just off Maui with Lanai in the background.

 

[DiveMaven]

I forgot about the Carthaginian! Okay, so we only had a 35 minute dive that time.

Our last 7 Lanai dives with Lahaina Divers (not 2nd Cathedral) were 50, 53, 43, 43, 49, 54, and 43 minutes, with our last 2 at Second Cathedral being 47 and 44 minutes. To be fair, these would have been in 2007, 2008, and 2009 since we didn't dive with them last year.

 

[oddible]

If you have a phone you could have called them and asked them. If you are on the West Side and have a rental car you could have stopped into the Lahaina Divers shop and asked them in person. Or you could hang out at Mala Ramp around noon and ask guests as they get off the Extended Horizons boat.



Let's see here; you seem to be connected to the internet somehow.

Yeah I could have spent my vacation researching dive ops, or I could use the research that I did before I got here which listed several excellently rated dive ops, asked locals, and went with the one on the list that didn't have any potential negatives which would have forced me to spend a bunch of time I could be sipping mai tais verifying info.

I'm on vacation, I'm takin the easy way out this week my friends. Glad to hear the good news about Lahaina, may get a chance to schedule a trip with them before I leave.

BTW, several folks here mentioned positive reviews of Maui Dreams dive shop - we've rented some gear there and went on their Easter Egg Hunt this weekend and the folks are really excellent - we scheduled a trip with them.

 

[oddible]

Oh, as a recommendation to the OP, my wife and I just went to Honolua Bay up in your area today and it was amazing for both snorkeling and diving if you're into doing a shore dive. Massive shallow and easily accessible reef (though mostly dead, lots of wildlife), and deeper areas and farther out where a tank is an asset. It is also a preserve so there are lots of unusually large parrotfish and surgeon fish. We saw a 3 turtles in a turtle resting area, spotted eels, a couple of octopus, a cleaning station, and right before we arrived a group of 15 dolphin came in and swam with the snorkelers.

 

[adjuster-jd]

To the OP - you don't mention where you are staying - that can have some bearing on recommendations for shore dives if you want to do that - Black Rock is an excellent shore dive (and night dive) and great snorkeling. You don't need a guide as the rock is your navigation aid. Maybe you can buddy up with some other divers you find around there and do a night dive there as well.
Airport Beach (Kahekili ?? ) up by the Westin timeshare resort is a nice shore dive as well and nice facilities there - showers, restrooms, etc. Also, Mala can be nice depending on conditions. There are usually some sharks hanging around Mala.
Honolua has also been mentioned - it's a bit of haul walking in with gear but a nice snorkel/dive location.
All of these shore dives can be done without paying for a boat - you can rent tanks and weights and get numerous shore dives in for less than one boat trip. I rented gear from Pacific Dive and they were nice folks and reasonably priced.
There are numerous shore dive locations on Maui which will yield excellent dives. Perhaps post where you are staying and folks can offer more suggestions. You don't really need a guide in these locations, but one could always help you see more things.
Shaka Doug has been mentioned as a guide and he is active on SB also. He's in the Kihei/Wailea area and wil surely show you a great time if you want to go down that way but it's a bit of a drive from Ka'anapali.


As for boats - I have been out on Extended Horizons' boat several times and was treated very well both as a brand new diver as well as an instructor when I brought my newly certified daughter along. It is a smaller boat but the crew takes good care of you and is very knowledgeable about the Lanai area. They leave from the Mala ramp which has free parking.