Dive Review of
Ed Robinson's/Marriott Ocean Club in
Hawaii/Maui

Hawaii, Florida Keys, Bahamas, USVI, BVI, Belize

Dive Conditions

Be back on boat with 500psi  

[None]  

Overall Rating

We did three charters with Ed Robinson's on this trip, and each one was
better than the previous.  The crew was outstanding both on land and in the
water, and we saw more marine life than we've ever seen on previous trips
to Maui.  This is why we've returned to Ed Robinson's after diving with
them earlier in the year.  I have to qualify why I put 3 stars for
beginners diving with this operator.  They tend to dive deeper profiles
than other operators on Maui that we've experienced, even on their 2-tank
charters.  I would say that a diver should be comfortable doing a 90 foot
dive and boarding a boat in moderate seas before booking with Ed Robinsons.
 They frequently do live boat dives and when the trade winds kick up,
reboarding the boat can be challenging.  

Ironically, our best charter started out with us not being sure we would be
able to dive that day.  On the way out of the harbor, the boat started
overheating and our captain, Mark, had to shut down the engines.  Dave
quickly crawled into the engine compartment and switched a part out.  Mark
started the engines and we went for another couple of minutes, only to have
him shut them down again as they were overheating again.  Dave again
crawled into the engine compartment and tweaked something.  Throughout this
time, Mark was on the radio to the other boat and to the home base letting
them know what was going on.  When Dave was done, Mark started the engines
again and after a few minutes we were underway again.  Because the
temperature was creeping up again and Mark didn't want to abort the trip,
he simply feathered back the ailing engine and let the other one do more
work.  He also chose S. Maui off-shore sites instead of taking us to
Molokini, which none of us seemed to mind.

Our first dive had us dropping in on 5 spotted Eaglerays, all of whom stuck
around for the first few minutes of our dive so we could get a good look at
them.  As if that was an omen for the rest of our dive, we not only heard
extremely loud and melodic whale song, but we saw a huge variety of
nudibranchs, leaf scorpionfish, Hawaiian lionfish, Commerson's frog fish
(2), a huge variety of shrimp, many aggressive damselfish, and some very
unique curious pipefish.  Of course this is in addition to a large variety
of tropical fish and a few turtles.  When we got back to the boat, everyone
couldn't stop talking about the excellent dive and how we all could have
stayed down there for hours.

Our second dive turned out to be just as good, as we immediately dropped
down and had a close encounter with a Manta!  He was just cruising along
and even after we dropped down, he didn't hurry or change course, just kept
about his business and cruised on by.  We again heard the incredible loud
voices of the humpback whales and scanned the blue water for a sighting,
but of course never saw one.  This dive was as good as the previous one,
with us finding the same assortment of marine life, but if possible, even
MORE lionfish!  Everywhere we looked there were lionfish, various cleaner
shrimp, leaf scorpionfish, and we were treated to the appearance of a
couple of mantis shrimp.

At the end of the day we were exhilerated at all the amazing creatures that
our DM, Dave, found for us.  There were a couple of photographers,
including my husband, and he did an excellent job of moving the other
divers in the group away from the critters to give the photographers time
to get their shots.  Dave always went at a perfect (slow) pace so that we
could find, see and photograph everything possible, and his skill at
finding tiny creatures was amazing.  :)  :)

We dove with Ed Robinson's the next day and although we didn't have the
quantity of rare and amazing sightings that we did the day before, we still
were treated to whale song, sharks, a close encounter with a Hawksbill
turtle, and many, many creatures we had seen during the previous
week...just not all on the same dive.

Since we own a timeshare at the Marriott Ocean Club on Kaanapali Beach, we
will return to Maui again each year and look forward to many years of
diving with Ed Robinson's. 

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