fkostyun
Contributor
I'm curious on this also - I am going to be in Ohau the 10th to the 13th, and want to do some dive's on the 11th. The one thing I want to see is the corsair - and am also looking for a good boat for a day of diving.
Oahu - dive recommendations?
- Thread starter mdive
- Start date
Please register or login
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
- Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
- A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
- You can make this box go away
munclematt
Contributor
If your going to dive the Corsair, you want to hit up someone in Hawaii Kai. Capt Joe, Honey Girl, and Sea Fox are a few of the boats I know that go out that way. The boat goes where the companies ask the captain. If the weather supports certain places and everyone agrees, then that is where they head out too. Its normally a good atmosphere. I like diving with someone that boat hops like Kaimana divers. Small groups, meet new people, and its always a good time.
As for where to dive, everywhere is good. West side has a lot of cool things like airplanes, The Mahi, Caverns, and more. Plus there is always the possibility of a whale. Waikiki has a lot of cool wrecks and you never know what your going to see at Pipe. Hawaii Kai has the corsair and Baby Barge but the best thing out there I think is China wall. If you can do a china wall dive, you will love it!
As for where to dive, everywhere is good. West side has a lot of cool things like airplanes, The Mahi, Caverns, and more. Plus there is always the possibility of a whale. Waikiki has a lot of cool wrecks and you never know what your going to see at Pipe. Hawaii Kai has the corsair and Baby Barge but the best thing out there I think is China wall. If you can do a china wall dive, you will love it!
tn-diver
New
My wife and I just returned from Maui two days ago. The diving there incredible. We talked with Mark at Hawaii Scuba Divers - Scuba Diving in Hawaii - Maui, Oahu, Kona, Kauai, Big Island a few weeks before we went. We were planning on getting our nitrox certification while we where there. We brought our 10 year old daughter with us on this trip and she wanted to do an introductory dive after she did a "snuba" dive a couple of days before on a tour boat. He is located in Oahu but spent 5 years on Maui and knows all the good spots. All of the dive shops on Maui were booked for introductory dives so I called Mark. Mark called some of his diving buddies in Maui but still all were booked up. He actually flew over to Maui just to take the three of us diving. After some thorough instruction to my daughter she had one of the most breathtaking dives. We saw about a dozen sea turtles. Absolutely the most personal attention by a diving company or dive instructor that I have ever seen. Would recommend Mark with HawaiiScubaDivers.com. I will be posting some of the pics of that dive later today.
You are obviously not telling the whole story, there are plenty of locations and instructors on Maui who could have taken another intro diver any day in the last two weeks. If Mark really knew the Maui dive scene he would have been able to hook you up. All it really would have taken is a post here in the O'hana, but you obviously have another agenda.
tn-diver
New
My agenda would be to thank Mark for an awesome guided dive introducing my daughter to the world of scuba. The whole story is that until my daughter did "snuba" on 2/13 my wife and I were not sure how she would do in the open ocean. She loved it so we then tried to book a intro dive last minute. I called at least half a dozen dive shops but due to such short notice (2 days) all were booked for friday and saturday 2/15 & 2/16. Also due to my daughters age (10); one or two of the dive shops would not take anyone under 12. I am not badmouthing any other dive shops because each shop pointed me to another shop and tried to help me. I just saying we had a great experience with Mark. I don't think I'm the one with an agenda.
As a safety and vacation planning service, I will confine my agenda to educating future visitors with similar situations.
This doesn't really fit into the Oahu Dive Shop Thread, Oahu diving is different from diving anywhere I've heard of, this may only be a Maui-ish Answer.
First and foremost, the typical intro snuba experience on a Maui Snorkel Tour boat is not what most dive professionals would recommend as the way to safely see how one's 10 y/o child will do in the open ocean. If it was a typical Maui trip this time of year, there could very well have been significant distractions during the academic lecture (given after the sales pitch) on the way to Molokini. It is very hard for a child to pay attention to an adult (hopefully) when whales are being sighted by the rest of the passengers. It is also very hard to get a handle on the required skills while hanging onto a rope at the back of a bobbing boat in 35' of ocean, with snorkelers and fish darting about. First descents are notorious for ear trauma, and the gradual descent of a gently sloping shore (after practicing in a calm shallow swimming pool) is preferred by most knowledgeable instructors, so you don't find too many of them working snorkel/snuba charters.
Secondly, another name for intro dive is resort dive, and dive shops in the Islands are not usually as geared toward the resort dive as the resorts are (duh). Dive shops here concentrate more on selling and renting gear to certified divers, certification classes and guided tours (shore &/or boat). Most dive shops do not have a handy swimming pool (Jack's on the Big Island is the only one I know of), so the confined water training is typically conducted just off the beach in variably surging conditions (or hanging on the rope at the back of the boat), and then the dive tour is typically conducted with the remnants of the tank you have been breathing for the confined training. This and a few other reasons lead most Island dive shops to not be as interested in intro's as the intro diver might have hoped.
There are 5 resorts in South Maui and at least twice that on the West Side that all conduct intro dives on a daily basis. Most of the resorts dive operators are allowed to accommodate off property guests, as long as their resort guests are also accommodated. The instructors who conduct these resort intros do so on a much more frequent basis than the dive shop instructors (some twice/day, 5 days/week for many years) with the added pressure of snobby cliental that will complain at the slightest sleight. The location I work at has up to 5 instructors available daily for both morning and afternoon sessions, limiting student / instructor numbers to 4-1 for both pool and ocean, with a dedicated 4'/10' deep scuba pool for the confined training, and we put a fresh tank on for the ocean dive (with 50 cft available for the small fry and 100 cft available for the hoover's).
Under Scuba Diving Equipment & Instruction in the phone book I'm looking at, Beach Activities Of Maui is the second listing. 5 Star Scuba is the fourth listing and they are the dive contractor for Beach Activities. I'm not a big fan of the owner, but the instructors would not last if they were not good enough for the Hyatt, Sheraton, Royal Lahaina, Westin Villas (West Side), Marriott and Prince (South) resorts. If you had called 3 out of the first 4 numbers in the phone book you would have been given the option of 6 resort locations to do an intro dive at, that day or the next. The other resort operators are not listed in this phone book, but all you need to do is call any of the major Maui resorts and ask for the dive center.
The only way someone can't find an intro dive at the last minute on Maui is if they don't know who or what to ask! I am very supprised Mark did not know this (not)!
This doesn't really fit into the Oahu Dive Shop Thread, Oahu diving is different from diving anywhere I've heard of, this may only be a Maui-ish Answer.
First and foremost, the typical intro snuba experience on a Maui Snorkel Tour boat is not what most dive professionals would recommend as the way to safely see how one's 10 y/o child will do in the open ocean. If it was a typical Maui trip this time of year, there could very well have been significant distractions during the academic lecture (given after the sales pitch) on the way to Molokini. It is very hard for a child to pay attention to an adult (hopefully) when whales are being sighted by the rest of the passengers. It is also very hard to get a handle on the required skills while hanging onto a rope at the back of a bobbing boat in 35' of ocean, with snorkelers and fish darting about. First descents are notorious for ear trauma, and the gradual descent of a gently sloping shore (after practicing in a calm shallow swimming pool) is preferred by most knowledgeable instructors, so you don't find too many of them working snorkel/snuba charters.
Secondly, another name for intro dive is resort dive, and dive shops in the Islands are not usually as geared toward the resort dive as the resorts are (duh). Dive shops here concentrate more on selling and renting gear to certified divers, certification classes and guided tours (shore &/or boat). Most dive shops do not have a handy swimming pool (Jack's on the Big Island is the only one I know of), so the confined water training is typically conducted just off the beach in variably surging conditions (or hanging on the rope at the back of the boat), and then the dive tour is typically conducted with the remnants of the tank you have been breathing for the confined training. This and a few other reasons lead most Island dive shops to not be as interested in intro's as the intro diver might have hoped.
There are 5 resorts in South Maui and at least twice that on the West Side that all conduct intro dives on a daily basis. Most of the resorts dive operators are allowed to accommodate off property guests, as long as their resort guests are also accommodated. The instructors who conduct these resort intros do so on a much more frequent basis than the dive shop instructors (some twice/day, 5 days/week for many years) with the added pressure of snobby cliental that will complain at the slightest sleight. The location I work at has up to 5 instructors available daily for both morning and afternoon sessions, limiting student / instructor numbers to 4-1 for both pool and ocean, with a dedicated 4'/10' deep scuba pool for the confined training, and we put a fresh tank on for the ocean dive (with 50 cft available for the small fry and 100 cft available for the hoover's).
Under Scuba Diving Equipment & Instruction in the phone book I'm looking at, Beach Activities Of Maui is the second listing. 5 Star Scuba is the fourth listing and they are the dive contractor for Beach Activities. I'm not a big fan of the owner, but the instructors would not last if they were not good enough for the Hyatt, Sheraton, Royal Lahaina, Westin Villas (West Side), Marriott and Prince (South) resorts. If you had called 3 out of the first 4 numbers in the phone book you would have been given the option of 6 resort locations to do an intro dive at, that day or the next. The other resort operators are not listed in this phone book, but all you need to do is call any of the major Maui resorts and ask for the dive center.
The only way someone can't find an intro dive at the last minute on Maui is if they don't know who or what to ask! I am very supprised Mark did not know this (not)!
tn-diver
New
Not one dive shop in Maui recommended any resort dive operator to me for an introductory dive. Nor did I think to look at the resorts in the phone book. I stayed at the Palms Wailea not exactly a resort. I just always dealt with dive shops directly trying to find best local dive spots, but I do appreciate the info. Hopefully she will be certified on our return trip next year.
Hawaii Scuba Divers
Contributor
- Messages
- 161
- Reaction score
- 0
- # of dives
- I'm a Fish!
I am glad that you took the TIME to answer the what ever QUESTION you thought Paul had???
I took this FAMILY DIVING and as you can see they had a FANTASTIC TIME....
If you have a PROBLEM WITH ME???
Then please contact ME DIRECTLY.....
ALOHA AS OLE
I took this FAMILY DIVING and as you can see they had a FANTASTIC TIME....
If you have a PROBLEM WITH ME???
Then please contact ME DIRECTLY.....
ALOHA AS OLE
grandizer52
Contributor
well...
I can personnally vouch for mark and hawaii divers that I have sent him over 100 students that were active duty USN due to his professional attitude,and safety steps to my sailors.
the above dragged out post seems more as a trolling post. and Marks dedication to the hawaii dive community has been proven over and over by past students that have sent people from TX and MA to get instruction from him specifically. when japanes divers have approached him, Mark recommend the best Dive guide not shop for their specifice dialect as well as ability.
laytah
steve
by the way this wasn't paid for by hawaii divers
I can personnally vouch for mark and hawaii divers that I have sent him over 100 students that were active duty USN due to his professional attitude,and safety steps to my sailors.
the above dragged out post seems more as a trolling post. and Marks dedication to the hawaii dive community has been proven over and over by past students that have sent people from TX and MA to get instruction from him specifically. when japanes divers have approached him, Mark recommend the best Dive guide not shop for their specifice dialect as well as ability.
laytah
steve
by the way this wasn't paid for by hawaii divers
Hawaii Scuba Divers
Contributor
- Messages
- 161
- Reaction score
- 0
- # of dives
- I'm a Fish!
Thanks STEVE.
I am planning trip to Japan to play Rugby and maybe learn Japanese so that I can keep some of that Business since very large section of Diving here in Oahu..
Aloha Mark..
I am planning trip to Japan to play Rugby and maybe learn Japanese so that I can keep some of that Business since very large section of Diving here in Oahu..
Aloha Mark..
Similar threads
