| Comments |
We only had 4 dive days on Maui during this trip, and because we don't like to shore dive much, we decided to book two 3-tank Adventure charters with Ed Robinsons. They advertise that the first of the 3 dives takes you to Molokini and Shark Condos, which is a 130' dive. On our first charter, we didn't go to Shark Condos, which was fine with us since we hadn't been diving in a couple of months and it was nice to have a few warm up dives prior to pushing the recreational dive limits.
We arrived at the Kihei boat ramp prior to the 6:30am meet time, and were immediately greeted by the crew. They checked us in, took our gear, and proceeded to set it up for us on the boat. There was coffee, juice, and bagels to munch on prior to launching the boat, and we visited with other divers on our boat. This was the same procedure for both of our charters and it worked very well.
Once the boat was launched, we had a short briefing about the boat as we took off for our first site. Our first dive was at a site called "The Apartments" off the south coast. This dive was a rather square profile, 110' for 25 minutes. We saw a couple of amazing frog fish, including a white one that we got fabulous pictures of. We had an SI of 1:14 where we were served muffins and coffee. Second site was Ene Nue at Molokini, and there was very little current or waves, which was great. Profile was 87 feet for 40 minutes where we saw many grey and white tip sharks, octopus, and lots of eels. SI for 1:08 where we had sandwiches, juice, and soda served. Our final dive profile was 60 feet for 45 minutes on the Backwall of Molokini where we also saw quite a few sharks. On all 3 dives, the whale songs were loud and we continually scanned the blue water hoping to see one.
Our second 3-tank Adventure charter had the same procedures as the first. Our sites were different though, which was great. The first site was Shark Condo at Molokini with a profile of 130 feet for 40 minutes. Obviously we pushed the no-deco limit on that dive, and quite a bit of time was spent much shallower than 130 feet, but it was really neat to see cruising sharks and ones hanging out under the ledge that gives the site it's name. After a 1:17 SI and muffins, the boat moved to the backwall only to find it too rough to dive. We then moved to "Reefs End" where we did an 84' dive for 55 minutes (again, spending most of our time shallower than that). After sandwiches and a 1:14 SI, we went to St. Anthony's wreck (at my request), and did a 70' dive for 40 minutes. On that dive we saw a very rare redstriped pipefish inside the wreck, and a beautiful (?) frogfish hanging out on the deck. There were 3 turtles sleeping on the wreck, and we enjoyed seeing hordes of butterfly fish and trumpet fish in the tires surrounding the wreck.
All of our dives (except The Apartments) were live boat dives, and definitely would have been very challenging a few times for beginner divers. We didn't have any inexperienced divers on our boat, though on one charter it was quite bizarre to watch one woman do 75% of her dive in the vertical position!!
We'll definitely book with Ed Robinsons again when we're back on Maui later this year. They run a first class operation with DM's who know their sites and their marine animals. The briefings were always excellent and the information on the sea life first class. |
Email Signup
|
Subscribe
|
Login
