Diving with Lahaina Divers/ private house rental in
Hawaii/Maui in 2003/12:
an Instant Reader Report

 Just started.  We completed our open water on Maui, then followed with 2
boat dives and another 4 beach dives.  13 altogether.  We're hooked. 

Dive Conditions

Supposedly minimum of 500 back at the boat  

Only saw one serious UWP with his large flash setup.  He seemed content.  

Overall Rating

All in all a very cool first time experience shared with experienced diver
friends.  There was 8 total of us, 6 of which are divers.  This was a
reunion of sorts with some not seeing each other for 25+ years.  We stayed
in Kihei at a wonderful house all to ourselves and extremely reasonably
priced it was, like $300/night for all of us! Not to mention the pool,
pooltable, view of Molokini to the SW and the volcano to the East.   I just
want to share this one aspect.  When we rented tanks from Maui Dive Shop
for our beach dives, and also while boat diving with them off Molokini
Crater, all tanks were consistently at or above 3200 psi, EVERYTIME.  We're
talking dozens of tanks over the course of 2 weeks.  On the other hand,
while boat diving with Lahaina Divers, it seemed that EVERY tank was at
2800 or LESS, several at 2750... to start with?  When we initially inquired
of the staff on the boat, we were immediately offered our second tank, with
the promise of finding "better fills" somewhere else on the boat
first chance. Didn't happen.  At this same time I was also offered the
explanation about "how some employee back at the fill station must
have been in a hurry".  Ok,  missing 400 to 500 psi for us heavy
breather novices...it's not the end of the world, but I can tell you I
needed ALL my air in order to do the "suggested" safety stop. But
here's the kicker, after the first tank was completed and we had some
snacks and surface interval, just before suit up for the second tank at the
conclusion of the briefing, it was announced "anyone on the boat that
wishes they had a little more air was welcome to the 4 or so special all
shiny new yellow aluminum tanks with MORE air in them..... for an
ADDITIONAL $7.00 lousy dollars.  Can you freak'en believe that? They had no
takers at that time.  My reaction was to immediately recalculate my
intended tip to be at least $7.00 less for what I concluded was an insult
to my intelligence.  I think most of us filled out and turned in the
suggested staff performance report in order to claim our promised 'crater
poster back at the dive shop.  One of our dive group pitched his bitch one
last time, in a totally respectfull manner, this to the attention of the
salesclerk/boat sign-up guy back at the dive shop.  The reply was,
"2800 psi and up is considered a full tank".  Mahalo 

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