Ever consider scuba diving? Do it. But carefully consider where you take your certification course, it can make all the difference! We choose Maui because we knew it would be idyllic warm water and the island is renowned for diving. While diving in warm water will require us to later do a cold water conversion, we wanted to minimize as many factors as we could to make our first diving experience easier. Diving in Maui meant thinner wetsuits, no gloves, beach access and fantastic visibility!
There are a number of dive schools on the island and most will be around the same price, so do a little research and find a program that sounds right for you. We went with Maui Diving Scuba Center and had an amazing time learning with Mike (check out his amazing Instagram). All four dives were open water dives – there’s no pool learning. We personally loved this because the diving was fantastic and we’re very comfortable in open water, however if you have reservations, you may feel better starting in a pool. The biggest thing to remember when diving is to just relax and breathe. Use minimal effort to swim, take normal breaths, and focus instead on all the things you can see.
All of our dives were at Airport Beach in Lahaina. It’s not too far of a trek from the parking lot over to the shore, which is a good thing when you’re lugging all that equipment. And if you think that’s rough, wait until you finish your dive and you remember the sensation of gravity (: Throughout the dives we saw plenty of fish, a sea turtle, eels, an octopus, and even a barracuda from afar! As you might expect the coral is not that colorful anymore, so please do your part in helping protect the reef and use reef-safe sunscreen!
We decided to hold off on bringing the GoPro until our last dive, essentially when we were pretty much done learning and testing through the skills. That gave us time to focus on learning and getting used to everything. Now we can’t wait until our next diving opportunity!
Watch our the highlight of our final dive:
