Dive Review of
Ed Robinson Dive Adventures/Hyatt Regency Maui, Ka'anapali in
Hawaii/Maui

Hawaii, Tahiti, Indonesia, Malaysia, N & S California, E & W
Mexico, Gulf of Mexico, Bahamas, Cayman Islands, Bonaire, Aruba, St.
Thomas, Australia (Barrier Reef and Coral Sea)

Dive Conditions

Followed dive master guide, but allowed to complete dive under boat subject
to bottom time and air restrictions  

Plastic tubs to store cameras under seats and rinse bucket on boat.  No
facilities on shore, except to use hose at boat wash down area.  

Overall Rating

This was our first trip to Maui, so we chose our dive operator, Ed Robinson
Dive Adventures, on the recommendation of Dive Makai on the Big Island and
the indispensable guide, Maui Revealed.  They go out of the Kihei Boat Ramp
on West Maui, as do many other dive operators.  Unfortunately for us, this
is an hour drive from the Ka’anapali resort, where we were staying, and due
to the afternoon trade winds, everyone starts diving at 6:30 in the morning
so as to be back before the seas pick up.  A 5:30 stop at the Lahaina
Safeway for coffee and donuts to go became part of the routine.

ERDA has two 30' aluminum boats on trailers at the boat ramp (every other
dive operator does the same), onto which gear can be loaded before parking
nearby.  When the boats are launched, you hop aboard.  Your BC and
regulator will be on a tank, with fins, booties, mask and wet suit neatly
stowed nearby, courtesy of the two member boat crew and two dive masters on
board.  Each boat takes a max of 12 divers, and for diving are divided into
two groups of six with a dive master guide for each.  Each of our three-day
two-tank dives started at the Molokini crater, about 15 minutes from the
harbor.  We did two drift dives with current and blue water safety stops
around the tips of the crater, then – on the specific request of my wife
with a view toward macro photography, did one “no-current” dive with the
boat anchored on the Mid Reef dead center on the crater.  These dives might
go as deep as 100 feet, and the second dives each day were done at a near
shore site, though at 65 feet, we usually were limited by bottom time, not
air.  The visibility at the crater was in the 100 foot range, and we saw
white tip sharks in groups, eels, frogfish, a flying (or helmet) gurnard,
and schools of the more common (in Hawaii) Millett, Pyramid, and Racoon
Butterfly fish, plus wrasse, squirrel fish, spotted grouper, and more.  On
the shallow dives with lower visibility, we encountered large, approachable
turtles, leafy scorpion fish, cleaner shrimp at work on eels, and – on one
memorable dive – spinner dolphins at the start of the dive and a lone,
curious bottlenose at the end.

The one criticism we had of the operation is that the dive masters tended
to overestimate the abilities of the divers in an attempt to offer them the
most interesting diving opportunities.  This resulted in one diver making
her first open ocean dive and first dive after certification a drift dive
in 80 feet of water and a 2 knot current with a “blue water” safety stop
required prior to recovery at the end.  We doubt she will ever put fins on
again.  On the flip side, when we had very specific requests to accommodate
photography (e.g., no current, boat at anchor), they spent time at three
different sites evaluating conditions before picking one that turned out to
be the best dive of the trip, and they would have done the same for anyone
with specific interests (who made them known to the crew).
 

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