Dumbest Diver Ever?
Molokini Crater lies just off the southwest coast of Maui and is its most popular dive destination. Once an active volcano, just a portion of the rim now extends above the water. Inside the crater are shallow coral gardens. On the north side is an opening that lets divers explore the outside slope, which extends at a 45-degree angle down several hundred feet.
Three days a week, the dive operation I managed would take its main boat to Molokini. On the first dive, we’d take passengers to the outside slope on the north side of the crater (but never deeper than 65 feet). The second dive took place in 40 feet of water, near the inside rim of the crater.
In December, 1992, I’d been managing the operation for just a few weeks and was still relatively new to the area. On this particular day, I was approaching Molokini from the north. From two miles out, I could tell something didn’t look right.
By 7:45 most mornings, the crater is usually filling up with snorkel and dive boats. On this morning, however, there was not a boat in sight. From one mile out, I began to see why.
Most days, the inside of the crater is fairly calm — until late morning. At that point, trade winds moving down Maui’s central valley intensify, and waves begin to grow. On this particular day, however, the wind and waves arrived early. There were whitecaps three feet high inside the normally placid crater.
Diving inside the crater was out of the question. The more pressing issue was, what now? The same high winds that had blown out the Crater had also rendered most of the southwest Maui dive spots I knew about undiveable.
Had I been presented with this freak occurrence just a few months later, I’d have known of alternatives. The problem was, at this point, I’d only been driving the boats a few weeks and was still unfamiliar with a lot of the area. The only alternative I knew about at that particular moment was the back side of the crater.
The south side of Molokini Crater is among the central Pacific’s few genuine wall dives. Unlike most Caribbean walls, which start roughly 100 feet below the surface, the back side of Molokini’s wall begins 100 feet above the surface and drops, vertically, to over 600 feet before even beginning to level off. It’s not for novices — or divers whose skills are lacking in any way.
At that point, however, I wasn’t aware of any other choice.
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