Right after Christmas I headed down to Maui to relax and do some diving… thought some people might like a little post-trip report.

I went with Ed Robinson, which was a tremendously good decision. I did a total of 10 dives – 12/28 did a 2 tank AM dive, and 2 tank sunset/night dive. 12/29 did a 3 tank dive. 12/31 did a final 3 tank dive.

First, the dive company…

The crew is mature but fun. They give each other and the divers a hard time, but they are extremely professional. They offer top notch service (“This is the aloha state, so you don’t have to do anything but sit there”) and seem to have endless amount of experience in diving. Dave, one of the dive masters, said that this year he did 637 dives, which is down from the 650 he did in 2005. Several of the divers have known the dive masters for years – one of the folks had been diving with them for over 15 years.

The boats are by far the best dive boats I’ve been on. Designed specifically for diving (or at least very nicely retrofitted?) they are roomy and comfortable. They have ladders on both sides of the boat amidships and two ladders on the back. The boat handled 5’ seas with no problem when we hit some bigger waves.

The running of the actual dives was excellent. Before each dive we had a good briefing on the site, a discussion about the options we had as divers (this site is good for exploring on your own, or you should stick together, etc.). They briefed us on the terrain, conditions, and a little about the history. They also talked about the specific marine life we would expect to see at each site, what was common and what was rare.

During the dives we did a “loose buddy system” (not “lose your buddy system”) where we stuck in groups of 5 or so – 4-5 divers with 1 dive master. The visibility was good - ~100’ on all the dives – so we stayed within about 20’ of the nearest diver. The farthest I got away from the dive master was probably 30’ (a bit farther than I liked at a few points). The nice thing about this system was that I didn’t feel like I’d be saddled with a bad buddy, the down side was that I didn’t necessarily feel that someone specifically (other than the dive master) was looking out for me. That said, the dive master seemed to always be watching everyone.

Second, the other divers…

Ed Robinson caters to advanced divers, or so the web site claims. In my experience this is absolutely true. When I went diving in Mexico 2 years ago, I felt like one of the more experienced divers with ~20 dives in the northwest. On board there were maybe 2 other divers with their own gear. On Ed’s boat I was probably the least experienced divers with ~50 dives. Most of the divers where at 100+ dives, and most had their own gear.

Every diver had close to perfect buoyancy control, and handled themselves very well in and out of the water. Everyone had a dive computer, and tracked their nitrogen loading carefully as we did many repetitive dives. There were no boasting about depth, air consumption, quantity of dives, or anything else you often see from less mature divers. About the only “boasting” was between the dive master and one of the divers that they’ve known for a long time – the diver had better air consumption than the dive master :)

Third, the dives…

(sorry if these are vague, I meant to do this write up immediately following the trip)

Day 1:

85 (Hawaiian Reef) – Square profile dive to 85’. Saw an eagle ray. Water was a bit chilly, brisk almost on entry. As soon as I was under my 3mm fully wet suite kept me plenty warm. Really this first dive was about acclimating to the water and dive crew. Very nice though.

Wailea Point – Wind picked up in the afternoon. This dive was slightly more shallow – 40’ then a drop down to >50’. There were a lot of small reefs around the dive site.
 
Night 1:

Molikini – On the way out we saw humpback whales breaching. As soon as we got in the water the sound of the whale calls was absolutely amazing. I saw a ~4’ white tip shark from a distance. An absolutely amazingly large lobster – probably 2’ long antennae.

Marty’s – This was an incredibly cool dive. Going down the line with lights visible to 100’. Came down to a large central reef with tons of fish. An octo came out to play, and our dive master entertained it (and us).

Day 2:

Battleship – Square dive profile right to 110’. Huge reef system that looked like a battleship. I stayed a bit higher than the group to lengthen my dive time. Saw another 4’ white tip shark.

Reef’s end (reverse) – Another Molikini dive, incredibly cool. Saw schools of Jack fish. Another octo came out to play (rare in the daylight). Also, saw a hawk billed turtle. The dive master went up and uncovered a bit of sponge, the turtle came right over and started chomping away.

Landing craft – a WWII landing craft that was sunk off the coast of Maui. Pretty cool scenery.

Day 3:

The Apartments – Very cool lava formation at 110’ (square dive profile), however not much sea life.

Back wall of Molikini – More great sea life on the back wall. Hit a monster current coming around a corner, and we ended up basically turning around and chilling on the wall for a while. Did a free ascent away from the wall from 40’, very interesting when you have no line or point of reference. Good skills test.

St. Anthony – This was the last five of the trip for me, and what a way to end up. A sunken ship with tons of butteryfly fish everywhere. We poked around inside the wreck a little bit, and came upon a 6’ giant sea turtle. We kept our distance, but it was just amazing to sit there ~10’ from this animal. We watched for a while, then left the hull… at which point the turtle decided to take a breath. It slowly made its way up to the surface, just fabulous to watch.

Sorry for the long post… but it was just a fabulous trip!