Recent Trip to Maui, One Family's Perspective

[BRP650R]

Aloha Ohana!

We just finished a great dive trip in Maui, and thought I'd share our experience. Understanding of course perspective is mostly flavored with opinions!

First off, our experience with Lahaina Divers was great. It's a busy shop for sure. Be aware of that at boat swap times (first thing AM, Noon-ish). On board, both Captains were very professional. Deck hands were safety aware and helpful. Every dive guide we had was Scuba Instructor certified and gave thorough dive briefings. High points were Lanai Cathedrals, Molokini Back Wall Drift, and the Hammerhead dive. They (I think) offer more dive sites options than any other operator on Maui. We heard good things about Maui Dive Shop too, but we didn't dive with them,

On the other hand, we had a terrible experience with a Kihei area dive shop. I've never seen a dive guide allow or encourage grabbing the reef, or grab the reef themselves. Or remove wild life from their habitat. Or spend the majority of the dive swimming in circles taking pictures. Instead of actually "guiding" the dive. Blech. The word on the street is most Kihei boat ramp operators are focused on the Molokini Crater. Dive 1 there, maybe Dive 2 too, or something near shore. Repeat Daily. If you are only doing one dive, this may be your cup of tea. Wasn't for us.

Hope all find this helpful; feel free to ask us about anything else. And yes, the tourist-y Luau experience is pretty fun!

 

[anchochile]

Aloha Ohana!
I've never seen a dive guide allow or encourage grabbing the reef, or grab the reef themselves. Or remove wild life from their habitat. Or spend the majority of the dive swimming in circles taking pictures.

If this is true, I would strongly suggest that you name the shop. Either they have a bad apple among their guides and need to know about it, or it's a systemic issue and we should know so we can take our dollars elsewhere.

The word on the street is most Kihei boat ramp operators are focused on the Molokini Crater. Dive 1 there, maybe Dive 2 too, or something near shore. Repeat Daily. If you are only doing one dive, this may be your cup of tea. Wasn't for us.

Word on the street? I don't think this is a secret - every Kihei operator clearly shows on their website where they dive. I've done fantastic boat dives our of Kihei - Molokini has stunning visibility, healthy reef, as well as the chance for pelagics. There are tons of locations along the South Maui coast for the 2nd dive, many of which are not accessible by shore and offer similar great critter spotting, for example the St Anthony wreck. With a good operator and a guide who knows what to look for, these boat dives are well worth it, including for multiple days. I haven't dived Lanai, and I would love to - but not everyone wants a long and potentially very rough crossing.

To each their own - but I think saying that the S Maui model of Dive 1 molokini, Dive 2 along the shore is a negative is overly simplistic and reductive.

 

[Landau]

I enjoyed my time with Lahaina divers as well (Dove there this June) - but found the surface intervals too short. For Molokini back wall my surface time was only 42 minutes between dives to 26 metres and 25 metres. The next day on Molokini Crater my interval was only 41 minutes on dives to 20 and 19 metres. Both times I had to come up off the ref near the end of the dive sooner than I wanted to to avoid going into deco.

I would have preferred at least an hour between dives.

Also did two dives on Mala pier with them and the surface interval was only 21 minutes 0 but that was fine as dives were shallow and deco was not an issue.

 

[rsingler]

+1 to Lahaina Divers!

 

[David Leach]

+1 to Lahaina Divers!

I’ve did some diving with Lahaina Divers a few weeks ago and could not have been happier. In addition to a great boat (Dominion) and captains, they have some truly experienced dive guides. The one who led us on the hammerhead charter calculates that he has dove that particular site more than 1,200 times!

There was a medical event on one of my charters, and the crew was very attentive to the affected diver and did everything possible to make her comfortable while we headed back to the marina. If I had a problem on board, I would want a crew like that taking care of me.

I do agree that the surface intervals tend to be short - most of mine were ~45 min. Even so, I never had a problem having to ascend to stay out of deco, so I didn’t mind.

 

[BRP650R]

Aloha Ohana!

We just finished a great dive trip in Maui, and thought I'd share our experience. Understanding of course perspective is mostly flavored with opinions!

First off, our experience with Lahaina Divers was great. It's a busy shop for sure. Be aware of that at boat swap times (first thing AM, Noon-ish). On board, both Captains were very professional. Deck hands were safety aware and helpful. Every dive guide we had was Scuba Instructor certified and gave thorough dive briefings. High points were Lanai Cathedrals, Molokini Back Wall Drift, and the Hammerhead dive. They (I think) offer more dive sites options than any other operator on Maui. We heard good things about Maui Dive Shop too, but we didn't dive with them,

On the other hand, we had a terrible experience with a Kihei area dive shop. I've never seen a dive guide allow or encourage grabbing the reef, or grab the reef themselves. Or remove wild life from their habitat. Or spend the majority of the dive swimming in circles taking pictures. Instead of actually "guiding" the dive. Blech. The word on the street is most Kihei boat ramp operators are focused on the Molokini Crater. Dive 1 there, maybe Dive 2 too, or something near shore. Repeat Daily. If you are only doing one dive, this may be your cup of tea. Wasn't for us.

Hope all find this helpful; feel free to ask us about anything else. And yes, the tourist-y Luau experience is pretty fun!

If this is true, I would strongly suggest that you name the shop. Either they have a bad apple among their guides and need to know about it, or it's a systemic issue and we should know so we can take our dollars elsewhere.



Word on the street? I don't think this is a secret - every Kihei operator clearly shows on their website where they dive. I've done fantastic boat dives our of Kihei - Molokini has stunning visibility, healthy reef, as well as the chance for pelagics. There are tons of locations along the South Maui coast for the 2nd dive, many of which are not accessible by shore and offer similar great critter spotting, for example the St Anthony wreck. With a good operator and a guide who knows what to look for, these boat dives are well worth it, including for multiple days. I haven't dived Lanai, and I would love to - but not everyone wants a long and potentially very rough crossing.

To each their own - but I think saying that the S Maui model of Dive 1 molokini, Dive 2 along the shore is a negative is overly simplistic and reductive.

Hi AC, I think my original post needed a new paragraph at that point where you labeled me as "negative" and "reductive". Ouch, that stung a little. My intent is to offer up my family's opinion of the tourist-centric dive scene from the perspective of a first time visitor. We had no clue where to dive on the way in. I emailed 2 or 3 shops asking for a little insight, variety, EANx, etc. and got zero response. NBD really, I know shops are busy. I caught one shop on the phone, and was told "we mostly go to Molokini". Fair enough. There are scads of dive shops on Maui, and scads of dive sites pretty easily accessible from Lahaina, Kihei or Maalaea. We picked two, and batted .500. We love diversity and had multiple diving days. Overall we had a great trip.

So let me re-set. The bad experience we had was with the guide, not the site. The Molokini Crater is AWESOME! We had a great dive. The second dive, regardless of your "...if this is true..." comment, was flat wrong, wrong, wrong. In my opinion. But my opinion is also that as divers we should NEVER grab the reef or pull any critter out of their hidey-hole for a photo. It might have been a great dive site, but we never moved from the drop spot. And it doesn't matter. My advice? Be Selective! I'm sure there are great operators in S. Maui. Perhaps you could suggest one. If the crater is number one on your list, the Kihei boat ramp is the closest access, and an operator that goes every day likely knows the site better than the twice a week crew. And no, I'm not putting a dive shop on blast because of one dive my family didn't like. Lastly, we had positive experience with Lahaina Divers, and think they deserve a big OK hand wave. Mahalo.

 

[BRP650R]

I enjoyed my time with Lahaina divers as well (Dove there this June) - but found the surface intervals too short. For Molokini back wall my surface time was only 42 minutes between dives to 26 metres and 25 metres. The next day on Molokini Crater my interval was only 41 minutes on dives to 20 and 19 metres. Both times I had to come up off the ref near the end of the dive sooner than I wanted to to avoid going into deco.

I would have preferred at least an hour between dives.

Also did two dives on Mala pier with them and the surface interval was only 21 minutes 0 but that was fine as dives were shallow and deco was not an issue.

Agreed. We had the same interval, and would have preferred a little more. Our computers got a little grumpy but they're Suunto's and are pretty conservative. If Lahaina Divers is listening, I think another 15 mins would have made a difference on no-deco time. I will say this though, our dive guide was emphatic that computers were mandatory for this dive site. And that on the second dive, as certified OWD's it was important for each diver to be responsible to dive their computer and only their computer, communicate, and stay out of deco.
BTW, what are these "metre" things you speak of? Is that like a fathom or something?

 

[deeper thoughts]

Thnx for posting this review, very helpful

 

[Steve Eady]

Just my opinion. I have my own shore diving buisness here on maui. I have dove with a lot of the boat dive operations over the years. I really cannot say anything bad about any of them. When I do go with my clients on a boat dive I use Dive Maui / Hawaiian Rafting Adventures. Levi and the crew are laid back but VERY Professional. Example I just went today with them to Lanai and on our way almost back to the boat launch in Lahaina another boat told Levi they just spotted a whale shark. So he asked if we all wanted to go look and we spent at least 30 min cruising around looking for it. Never did spot it but they were willing to spend extra time to make there customers experience a “GREAT” one.
Mahalo
Scuba Steve
Maui Dive Connection
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