The back wall, inside the creator, coral gardens, 5 graves, all sound familier? Maui diving is great, and as a mountain boy I enjoy each trip to the tropics I can take.

This year I tried something new. Many fellow scuba divers told me to check out Maui Dream Divers and the scooter dives they offer. I've had zero experience with DPV dives but they looked fun. A year prior I remembered diving the St Anthony wreck, off Kihei, and saw a few scooter divers appear out of the blue to show up at the site. It looked fun so this was the time for me.

First off let me say Maui Dream Divers is the shop to check out when on the island. If you need air/nitrox or a good repair department this is the place. Run by real divers, not activity directors or dive boat operators, the store reflects a level of professionalism that cannot be beat on the Island. They don't advertise and the store front is just one block off the main drag in downtown Kihei so you need to seek it out a bit. I would also recommend advance reservations but I have to say the stores co-owner Rachel helped me out as a walk-in.

So back to diving. If you want to try a scooter dive it is so easy anyone with basic skills should do fine. I thought I would need to sit through a long class but that wasn't the case. With a newly met dive buddy from Tahoe we teamed up with Rachel and after a quick dive brief and scooter brief we started our dive. Going through the basics at about 15 feet depth off the clam beach was a safe and comfortable place to begin the new adventure. Easy to handle within just a minute or so we were taught to ride the scooters like SUPERMAN. This is so easy and fun, within a few minutes you are zooming along up and over reefs and flying like a superhero. Yes it is true, after a little practice you are so relaxed you will notice your air consumption is much lower when using the scooter.

We headed out to the St Anthony wreck at this point, about a 10 minute scooter ride. At about 3 minutes into the 'commute' we spotted a large manta ray, we then shut the scooters off and enjoyed a minute or two with this beautiful and graceful creature. One thing about scooter diving is that you cover so much more ground you see a ton of things. We then picked up a large sea turtle that seemed bent on swimming along side of us out to the wreck. Great.

When we arrived at the wreck we parked the scooters in the sand and did a little exploring. About this time 4 divers from a boat arrived from the surface. I will never forget the look of one of the divers as he was suspended in mid air and watched us mount the scooters and take a couple of victory laps around the boat before heading back. It reminded me of myself and I am sure he will be looking to do a scooter dive on his next rip. We headed back, took a surface interval and did it again.

I signed up for a short class to be held later in the week, DPV PADI adventure Dive. We had a great instructor at Maui Dream Divers (Matt) and went into more detail on the DPV diving- well worth it as I learned a ton, both in safety and in use. Matt even had us return to the store to help clean the scooters and debrief us on the day after our dive. This takes a little longer than the go and blow approach but now I feel comfortable if I were to get the chance to rent one, or if I were to buy one I know the basics and what to look for. If you get chance, make the effort to take a DPV dive, for me it was less cost and stress then the boats. You see more with the added bottom time and the greater distance traveled while using a DPV.

Thanks again to Maui Dream Divers.