Was in Maui last week and wanted to get a day of diving in. I booked with the Maui Diamond, out of Maalaea Harbor, for Saturday, Feb. 1. The previous week and seen some stormy days and from what I gathered, a lot of trips had been blown out during the week, which may have led to be boat being more crowded than normal for my trip. Maui Diamond's website states they try to keep the trips to 10-12 divers, but we had 21 on our trip. The boat - a 43' Newton - is big enough, but obviously it was a bit more crowded than it would've been with the usual amount of divers. Nice boat, though, has a working head and the crew was great.
I'd picked the "grab bag" dive, where you just hit a couple sites based on the conditions - the website states they "won't be Molokini!" but for our trip, that was the destination. The recent weather and rain had washed out all the near-shore locations. I hadn't dove Molokini before so I was okay with seeing the deeper parts I hadn't snorkeled before. Visibility was okay, and I thought the reef looked pretty healthy. Didn't see any remarkable fish life other than a couple frog fish, but I enjoyed the dives. They split us up into groups, each with a guide, and I believe we had about 6 divers in our group, guided by Ernie, who was awesome.
My big issue was just seasickness - we had pretty heavy, rolling seas from the storms that had passed through, and my Bonine just didn't cut it. Didn't throw up but felt pretty crappy most of the time I wasn't in the water. Overall, though, I'd definitely go out with them again.
I'd picked the "grab bag" dive, where you just hit a couple sites based on the conditions - the website states they "won't be Molokini!" but for our trip, that was the destination. The recent weather and rain had washed out all the near-shore locations. I hadn't dove Molokini before so I was okay with seeing the deeper parts I hadn't snorkeled before. Visibility was okay, and I thought the reef looked pretty healthy. Didn't see any remarkable fish life other than a couple frog fish, but I enjoyed the dives. They split us up into groups, each with a guide, and I believe we had about 6 divers in our group, guided by Ernie, who was awesome.
My big issue was just seasickness - we had pretty heavy, rolling seas from the storms that had passed through, and my Bonine just didn't cut it. Didn't throw up but felt pretty crappy most of the time I wasn't in the water. Overall, though, I'd definitely go out with them again.
