Snorkling

[Beth & Rob]

We are going on a 12 day to Hilo, Maui, Kona, Kauai and Honolulu in Sept 09.

 

I've never been to Hawaii, but we recently went to the Caribbean and did quite a bit of snorkling in the various ports we visited. We had rented a car and did this on our own except for the reefs, where we were taken out. No formal excursions.

 

Looking for suggestions on where to snorkle here and if it's suggested to to an excursion, then who and why.

 

Thanks so much

[Duffys wife 1957]

In Kona we snorkeled with Capt Zodiac..It was great... In Maui we went to Mokolini Crater with Pacific Whale Foundations... that was wonderful also.:D

[szubieta]

Haunama Bay on Oahu is great and can be done on your own. Get there early (as with any snorkeling site). Cost about $5, is worth it. Closed on Tuesdays.

[Beacher425]

We rented gear from Snorkel Bob's for the week. You can rent on one island and return on another. We took no snorkel excursions but drove to beaches ourselves. http://www.snorkelbob.com/cgi-local/SoftCart.exe/online-store/scstore/sbtips.htm?L+scstore+zwyj4655ff36b936+1344380540

On Maui we went to Kam 3. A little choppy with only a few rocks and fish. From Kona we went to Kahaluu Beach Park. only 5 miles south of Kona with a shuttle from the Pier area for $5. Super easy and lots of fish and turtles. On Kauai we went to Poipu beach park. OK snorkeling but we got to eat at Puka Dog on the way back.

[neecee23]

Tunnels or Kee Beach on Kauai. Buy the Ultimate guide books for each island, they have excellent recommendations for beaches and sights to see.

http://www.wizardpub.com/kauai/kauai.html

You can get these books on Amazon.

[Beth & Rob]

Thanks for the tips..........keep em coming!!

 

:)

[sceptic]

IMO the best on Maui is Honolua Bay. Even in the PM when the trades are blowing, Honolua can remain calm and gorgeous for snorkeling. Last month we snorkeled there at about 4:30 PM when the rest of the island's waters were apparently one gigantic whitecap - Honolua was basically calm.

 

Black Rock is nice, but often crowded. It's really not a huge area for the numbers of snorkelers there.

 

The snorkeling in S. Maui (La Perousse, etc.) is usually only good in the AM, until 10 or so, because the winds often kick up.

 

Kona: If you don't do Kealakekua Bay, the Place of Refuge is outstanding, some of the finest I've seen. More serious snorkeling is at Puako, but it's been years since I've been snorkeling there; perhaps someone with newer info than '94 can update us. What I recall is a harder entrance, but very nice wall snorkeling about 200 feet out.

 

Kahulu'u is nice, with an easy entrance. A bit overworked, and the fish have been hand-fed for years, but some good stuff there.

 

I leave Oahu and Kauai to others.

[Beth & Rob]

We do have our own gear and would prefer, if feasible, to go on our own.

 

We were in the Caribbean in Feb and rented a car in St. Maarten and drove from one end around the island, stopping at 3 places. We had so much fun!.

 

In St. Thomas, we walked off the ship and grabbed a taxi and said, take us someplace great and boy, he did. It cost us about $10 (for the 4 of us) and we went to Coki Beach. It was early. Chairs were $5. I doubt we'll find the same deals in Hawaii.

 

In the Bahamas, we went to the Information Center, chartered a boat for about $70 for 3 hours and went out to several spots in the reefs.

 

I don't want to spend all my time snorkeling as I've never been before. My husband will want to hike and see volcano stuff.

[suziehmkr]

We cruised the islands in late 2005...

 

On Maui, we snorkeled at Black Rock. It was pretty crowded, but fun. Not much of beach, so to speak. But a good choice for our family. The beach is just very narrow. But we weren't there for a day of beaching - main goal was snorkel.

 

We really enjoyed Poipu on Kauai. I think I enjoyed just being on a large beach. But if you went out far enough, the snorkeling was good. This was more of a beach day than anything else.

 

We had intended to snorkel at the Place of Refuge on the Big Island, but we were not able to port in Kona, which was very disappointing. It will be one of the first places that we head to when we go on our land vacation in December. Nothing but good reviews - even from the locals. You would need to rent a car to get there.

 

Hilo is not really known for snorkeling. There is snorkeling to be found. We spent the majority of our day at the volcano. We did visit Richardson Beach, which is a black sand beach. The kids got in and snorkeled, but the adults did not because we were a little short on time.

 

There are pictures of each of these in my Island Princess photo album in my signature.

[TBE]

I will always be a fan of Snorkling in Aruba and the Caymen Islands in the reef.

 

In Hawaii, Maui snorkling with the turtles near Makena was really fun. Those things are so graceful in water.

Kona - Nice snorkling near Capt. Cooks statue

Maui - Nice snorkling, too many people in Mokolini crater. Water is colder.

Oahu - I prefer taking a sail boat out in Waikiki, very lovely.

Oahu - Haunama Bay is very good if you arrive early in the morning. By 11am it is packed.

 

Kauai - Have not done it their yet.

[beachchick]

Aloha. As you can imagine, this is a subject that comes up often. I don't know if the advanced search is working, but the plain search for "snorkel" netted me 10 pages of threads. Here are links to several current/recent detailed threads with many options and opinions for both off-the-beach snorkeling and excursions:

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=791988&highlight=snorkel

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=798553&highlight=snorkel

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=791262&highlight=snorkel

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=746918&highlight=snorkel

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=753432&highlight=snorkel

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=744786&highlight=snorkel

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=735682&highlight=snorkel

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=730177&highlight=snorkel

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=732590&highlight=snorkel

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=730425&highlight=snorkel

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=723884&highlight=snorkel

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=723366&highlight=snorkel

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=708671&highlight=snorkel

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=701878&highlight=snorkel

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=675707&highlight=snorkel

 

There's some excellent information on these (and many other) threads. Happy reading!

 

beachchick

[spleenstomper]

I really enjoyed Lawai Beach in Kauai... near Poipu beach so you could probably do them both. This is where the "sea fun beach snorkel" excursion went (POH)... saw LOADS more than at Molokini Crater in Maui.... LOADS.

[Beth & Rob]

I was being lazy by posting for info. I did a quickie "search" but thought I've got plenty of fun to really get down to the planning.

 

Thanks so much for posting all the sights. I appreciate you're doing all my work for me. Hope I can return the favor, or at least pass it on.

 

:)

[kobecat]

Haunama Bay on Oahu is great and can be done on your own. Get there early (as with any snorkeling site). Cost about $5, is worth it. Closed on Tuesdays.

 

 

I have been looking at the bus to get to Haunama Bay from the cruise ship terminal and can't figure it out. Do you know if the circle island bus goes into the cruise ship terminal. I see that Bus 22 goes to Haunama Bay but does not seem to go as far as the cruise ship terminal. Can anyone help me with this one.

 

Thanks

 

Beryl

[beachchick]

I was being lazy by posting for info. I did a quickie "search" but thought I've got plenty of fun to really get down to the planning.

 

Thanks so much for posting all the sights. I appreciate you're doing all my work for me. Hope I can return the favor, or at least pass it on.

 

:)

 

No problem. Just pay it forward someday down the line. That's one of the great things about the CC forums (and especially this one).

 

beachchick

 

p.s., The other thing is that sometimes long-time members will bypass threads that have such broad and all-encompassing questions. Partly because Hawaii is just too big with too many options for us to sit down and list, describe, and suggest all the great options. There are easily more than 100 good snorkeling options. And partly because, when a broad-ranging question is also one that comes up frequently, we sometimes think, "You know, I just spent an hour last week answering a question almost exactly like this one. I really don't want to write it all out yet again." It's not personal, it's just that it gets extremely time consuming to repeatedly write long posts that have the same information. So that's why I'll sometimes pop a search and scroll for threads that I know contain lots of pertinent information. Not as much work and many, many more responses available.