Trip Report Maui 8/12 - 8/20
Had an amazing 8 days in Maui. We stayed on Kaanapali beach at the Whaler Unit #112 that we found through VRBO… The Whaler Vacation Rental - VRBO 59886 - 1 BR Kaanapali Condo in HI, August & September Specials! Great Prices Year Round.A killer 1br 2ba condo 100 steps from the sand and 300 yards from black rock.
Weather was good - VERY windy a couple of days, but also a couple of days of lake like conditions in and on the water. This was good for the divers, but bad for the surfer/skimboarder of our family!
We dove with Lahaina Divers and did a 4 tank day with them. As always (in our experiences) LD gave us great service and we had a wonderful trip. Morning dive was to Lanai for drift diving. We arrived and were 2 of only 8 divers on the whole boat! Having that boat to spread out with so few people on board was wonderful!
We did Barge Harbor north and Shark Fin. Topo was great and our DM Josie (amazing sweet girl) said it was the best visibly she's ever seen there!! We actually saw mooring balls in DEEP water that the boat crew never knew existed. Both dives were drift, and there was some current meaning we covered quite a bit of distance! We hit 100' on one dive (optional) and saw endemic species, tons of eel, octopus etc.
We were on our way back assuming that the afternoon/night combo would be the wreck and Mala, but found out we were on the once a month charter that does night diving at Lanai. We headed to Cathedral 2 and fish rock, but the conditions were not good. They suggested …… SHARK FIN. So we did shark fin at night (were buzzed by an eagle ray who circled around us for a couple of minutes) and really enjoyed it!!, The twilight dive was on a nearby site (Lighthouse Point) that was AMAZING! Huge but very tight swim through with surge, life, fish, just a really cool dive! John and Dan were a blast to dive with and took good care of everyone (IMHO).
There were two groups on the twilight/night trip, Group A was all very experienced divers, Group B was a mix some of whom were not experienced at all, and two doing their first night dives ever. A dad who was of part of group B was REALLY mad that they were in the baby group and was running his mouth on the boat. I suppose I would have been upset if I thought I was an 'advanced' diver and had to miss swim throughs and bottom time because your daughter had never done a night dive….but then again. We were given lots of freedom (by guided dive standards) and had nice long interesting dives for all 4 tanks. The other divers in both our groups that day were excellent and we had a nice time getting to know them.
Big shout out to the entire LD crew including the shop for making it another great diving trip!
We rented tanks from MAUI DIVING SCUBA CENTER | BEGINNER DIVERS | SCUBA referral DIVEs | Certification and Introductory Dives | BOAT DIVE| BEACH snorkel through NAUI, PADI ,SSI diving Courses for the beginner Diver on THE ISLAND OF Maui Hawaii. (great shop, great prices, say hi to the shop dog and cat). We did a typically fun night dive at black rock, and then a shore dive at Olowalu (long shallow dive with cool life, but a bit nervy with all the shark activity on Maui that week). I had a navigational challenge that made me do a bit of swimming to retrieve a tied off dive flag - crap - everything looks the same and it's a MASSIVE reef system but still embarrassing.
One other thing of note - we were SNORKELING one afternoon at a favorite spot to see turtles and about 10 minutes in, we noticed a pair of eagle rays swim into the bay. The stayed under us in 15' of water for a half an hour, playing, circling, chewing off chunks of reef and swimming around with them in their mouths sucking the life forms out - it was AMAZING and don't underestimate the things you can see with just a mask and snorkel in the shores off Maui.
All in all a great trip and we were VERY happy with the service we got from everyone we did business with. Maui remains our little slice of paradise and we can't wait to get back to our happy place!
I haven't edited video yet (don't have much as I was over the 'every shot of the dive on the GoPro' thing after Bonaire) but here are some topside shots from the iPhone 4s which I love using as my vacay video/sunset camera!!
the morning coffee scuba style
shark fin (duh)
Daughter and DM Josie (doing her best Life Aquatic pose)
Shark fin close
LD boat
Sunset at back of lanai with shark fin and coast
Maui no ka oi
Had an amazing 8 days in Maui. We stayed on Kaanapali beach at the Whaler Unit #112 that we found through VRBO… The Whaler Vacation Rental - VRBO 59886 - 1 BR Kaanapali Condo in HI, August & September Specials! Great Prices Year Round.A killer 1br 2ba condo 100 steps from the sand and 300 yards from black rock.
Weather was good - VERY windy a couple of days, but also a couple of days of lake like conditions in and on the water. This was good for the divers, but bad for the surfer/skimboarder of our family!
We dove with Lahaina Divers and did a 4 tank day with them. As always (in our experiences) LD gave us great service and we had a wonderful trip. Morning dive was to Lanai for drift diving. We arrived and were 2 of only 8 divers on the whole boat! Having that boat to spread out with so few people on board was wonderful!
We did Barge Harbor north and Shark Fin. Topo was great and our DM Josie (amazing sweet girl) said it was the best visibly she's ever seen there!! We actually saw mooring balls in DEEP water that the boat crew never knew existed. Both dives were drift, and there was some current meaning we covered quite a bit of distance! We hit 100' on one dive (optional) and saw endemic species, tons of eel, octopus etc.
We were on our way back assuming that the afternoon/night combo would be the wreck and Mala, but found out we were on the once a month charter that does night diving at Lanai. We headed to Cathedral 2 and fish rock, but the conditions were not good. They suggested …… SHARK FIN. So we did shark fin at night (were buzzed by an eagle ray who circled around us for a couple of minutes) and really enjoyed it!!, The twilight dive was on a nearby site (Lighthouse Point) that was AMAZING! Huge but very tight swim through with surge, life, fish, just a really cool dive! John and Dan were a blast to dive with and took good care of everyone (IMHO).
There were two groups on the twilight/night trip, Group A was all very experienced divers, Group B was a mix some of whom were not experienced at all, and two doing their first night dives ever. A dad who was of part of group B was REALLY mad that they were in the baby group and was running his mouth on the boat. I suppose I would have been upset if I thought I was an 'advanced' diver and had to miss swim throughs and bottom time because your daughter had never done a night dive….but then again. We were given lots of freedom (by guided dive standards) and had nice long interesting dives for all 4 tanks. The other divers in both our groups that day were excellent and we had a nice time getting to know them.
Big shout out to the entire LD crew including the shop for making it another great diving trip!
We rented tanks from MAUI DIVING SCUBA CENTER | BEGINNER DIVERS | SCUBA referral DIVEs | Certification and Introductory Dives | BOAT DIVE| BEACH snorkel through NAUI, PADI ,SSI diving Courses for the beginner Diver on THE ISLAND OF Maui Hawaii. (great shop, great prices, say hi to the shop dog and cat). We did a typically fun night dive at black rock, and then a shore dive at Olowalu (long shallow dive with cool life, but a bit nervy with all the shark activity on Maui that week). I had a navigational challenge that made me do a bit of swimming to retrieve a tied off dive flag - crap - everything looks the same and it's a MASSIVE reef system but still embarrassing.
One other thing of note - we were SNORKELING one afternoon at a favorite spot to see turtles and about 10 minutes in, we noticed a pair of eagle rays swim into the bay. The stayed under us in 15' of water for a half an hour, playing, circling, chewing off chunks of reef and swimming around with them in their mouths sucking the life forms out - it was AMAZING and don't underestimate the things you can see with just a mask and snorkel in the shores off Maui.
All in all a great trip and we were VERY happy with the service we got from everyone we did business with. Maui remains our little slice of paradise and we can't wait to get back to our happy place!
I haven't edited video yet (don't have much as I was over the 'every shot of the dive on the GoPro' thing after Bonaire) but here are some topside shots from the iPhone 4s which I love using as my vacay video/sunset camera!!
the morning coffee scuba styleshark fin (duh)Daughter and DM Josie (doing her best Life Aquatic pose)
Shark fin closeLD boatSunset at back of lanai with shark fin and coastMaui no ka oi
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