Best Dive Sites in Maui

[Cincydive]

So I have been looking at various forums and can't seem to find any sort of ranking or opinions for the best dive sites in Maui. I have seen some opinions of dive outfits, but want to know your opinions of those as well. <br>
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My husband and I are going to be in Maui for a week, May 2-9. We are staying in Kaanapali but I am willing to drive to get the most out of my week. We have been diving for over 10 years and probably have 100+ dives under our belt, so we are comfortable with more difficult dives, although we haven't been diving much lately as the kids are not old enough yet! (So maybe we need to start out slow!)<br>
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So as we have a limited amount of time on Maui, I was hoping that you all could help me find the best places and people to dive with while we are there. &nbsp;Thanks for all your help!

 

[Midge907]

ShoreDiving.com - Your Shore Diving and Snorkeling Web Community! should help you.

 

[TSandM]

My favorite dive on Maui is the Mala Pier. It's a good daytime dive, but it's well worth the money to do it as a night dive, too. Lahaina Divers does the Carthaginian (which is covered in frogfish) and the Mala Pier as a package. It's a great afternoon/evening dive.

North of you, Honolua Bay is a great dive. You can go out along the wall, and if the tide is high and the water isn't rough, you can come back across the top of it. Parking nowadays looks like quite an issue, and it's a long walk to the water, but it's a good site.

Most of the diving I've done has been down in the Kihei area, where there are a lot of good shore dives. Ulua Beach has an inner reef and an outer one, and we have seen some cool things there, including a manta and a pod of dolphins. There are almost always turtles.

Makena Landing is a pretty reliably good dive, again with turtles, and there are overhangs with reef sharks in them. The entry is easy, but there is a little surface swim out to where the best structure begins.

Have fun! You can keep yourself very pleasantly occupied with Maui shore diving. In addition to the site above, check out alohashoredivers.com for a lot of information on Maui dive sites.

 

[diversteve]

The Lahaina based boat operators mostly go to Lana'i. The signature dives there are the Cathedrals. Rather than describe the Lana'i sites, Trilogy on Lanai did a nice job so: http://www.scubalanai.com/sites.html My favorite is Shark Fin but it's advanced on the ocean side, can be ripping currents. It really puts you in your place to get tumbled head over heels uncontrollably when you look over and see thousands of Moorish Idols and Butterflyfish nonchalantly holding position 20' away. Fish Rock is another well named site. Lahaina Divers has special rules for those dives. They call it the West Lanai Drift.

Lahaina Divers also takes one of their boats down to Molokini Crater every other day. That's the other area for Maui boat diving. Inside the crater is pretty benign, it gets a little deeper and faster (sometimes) at the tips and the Backwall is considered more advanced diving - often live drops/pickups and the hard bottom is about 300'. You can ride over with them in under an hour or drive 45mins. down to Kihei and go with one of those operators - they mostly leave the Kihei boat ramp around 6AM.

For shore diving near where you're staying Black Rock is an easy shallow dive - would be a good starter dive. I sort of like Old Airport - Kahekili (sp) Beach also. It's pretty shallow for a long way out and sort of to the south is the remnants of where they used to load the sugar ships. Some debris is still in the water, bottles etc. We found octos out there in daylight in these long tubes (masts?).

Kapalua Beach is a shallow dive north of Ka'anapali. It's one of the named nicest beaches on Maui - the dive doesn't much exceed 40'. I dove the south point there from the other side which is Napili Bay. Maui Beach Diving

Kihei/Waliea is about a 45min. drive to the south. I like Wailea Beach also, there's a fish endemic to that area seen nowhere else on Maui. And some overhangs off the south point - I saw a big group or those vertical (Coronet?) fish there. Makena doesn't disappoint either but I'm not a fan of the kayaks.

IF you shore dive on your own, get tanks at one of the Maui Dive Shops - there's a location list on their website.

Also in the Kihei area is Maui Dreams Dive Co. - shore diving is pretty much all they do. If you wanted to do escorted shore dives in that area Shaka Doug at Shaka Divrs is another option - he has a dive bus.

My suggestions for boat dive operators in that area are B&B Scuba, Ed Robinson's Diving or Mike Severns Diving. All have been doing it a long time - I believe I dove with Ed once in the mid-80's.

 

[DiveMaven]

Since the best dive sites have been posted, I'm going to suggest that you consider hiring a good dive guide for at least a few of your dives. Not because of difficulty of any of the dives, but because a good guide will be able to point out all of the endemic and hard to find creatures that someone not experienced diving Hawaii will miss.

As an example, we were showing a Frogfish about the size of a salad plate to a friend of ours who had never been to Hawaii. She literally could not see what we were pointing at until we were almost touching the fish. It was very well camoflaged, but as obvious as the nose on your face to us since we've seen so many Frogfish in Hawaii. She would have swam by it and missed out had there not been experienced Hawaii divers with her that day.

Lest you think our friend was simply a lousy spotter, we see this over and over again both when we take folks out shore diving with us or when we're boat diving. We've also seen it with bad boat DM's, who swim by cool stuff and don't point them out.

Hiring a good dive guide is money well spent IMO, or taking the time to find locals or regulars to Hawaii to hook up with is time well spent.

 

[Johnnycat]

Just got back from Kaanapali. Though it wasn't a dive vacation, I took my mask and reg in the off chance that I could sneak away. We stayed at the Westin. A guy there gives SCUBA lessons in the pool "resort course" then leads them down the beach to Black Rock for a dive. I tagged along one day - not overly thrilling, but I did get in the water and I didn't have to spend the whole day away from the family.

Then one day I went with Lahaina Divers to Lanai (we dove Menpachi and Cathedral #1). Again, not overly thrilling, but it's a dive that's talked about a lot. Also, I was able to see some nudibranchs and humuhumunukunukuapua'a!!!!