Molokini Back Wall

This is a drift rather than a swim. The boat puts you in at one end of the outer rim and the current does the work along the face. PADI lists the site's maximum depth as 30 feet (9 m), so the dive is run high on a wall that carries on to 300 feet (91 m) beneath you, which is why its guidance for the site is blunt about buoyancy control: there is no bottom under the group to catch a diver who sinks. Stay in contact with your group and your guide from the moment you leave the surface.

The wall itself repays close attention, with nudibranchs, scorpionfish, moray eels and octopus in the crevices at arm's length, but much of the dive is spent watching the water off your other shoulder. Grey reef sharks and Galapagos sharks patrol the blue here and whitetip reef sharks turn up along the face; a manta ray, an eagle ray or, with luck, a whale shark comes past. The dive ends with the group together in open water and an ascent off the wall.

The crescent of rim shelters the inside of the crater from the waves and from the channel's currents. The seaward face has none of that cover, so the back wall is a site you dive when the channel allows it. Boats cross from Māʻalaea Harbor and the Kīhei Boat Ramp, about three miles out, and the best conditions at Molokini come in the early morning.