Our Dolphin and Snorkeling Adventure on the Island of LanaiWe were super excited about embarking on our day-trip to the Island of Lanai! The featured Lanai activity on this trip was to be snorkeling at 2 different locations, one of which was the well-known Manele Bay area. In addition to that, on the way back to Maui, we were hoping to see dolphins and whales! As was the case with most snorkeling trips, this meant getting up quite early, so as not to miss the scheduled departure time from Lahaina Harbour of 7 a.m. sharp! First, we had to check in at Korner Store (nope... I swear that's not a typo!) in Lahaina, before getting ourselves over to the boat waiting for us in the harbour. On previous snorkel trips, we were on much larger catamaran-style vessels... this boat was much more compact, and sat low in the water, which made me nervous initially, as I worried about how this smaller boat would get us across the ocean channel safely. However, once the boat got going on the water, I saw that it was more than capable of cutting through the waves! It actually worked out BETTER to be in a lower-sitting boat, since this allowed us to fully appreciate the true height of the waves! This experience completely changed my view of what a big wave was! The "big waves" that I was used to at my grandmother's cottage on the lake back home were maybe 1-2 feet tall at MOST. In contrast, on this CALM Maui morning, as our boat crossed the channel between Maui and the Island of Lanai, we ran into some waves that were EASILY 4 feet high! All I could think was WOW! If these are what real ocean waves look like on a CALM day, then what must they be like on a STORMY day?? Experiencing these large waves was a true novelty for me, and made this trip seem like even MORE of an adventure! Our first stop at the Island of Lanai was to snorkel here:
One of the snorkel boat operators dove down to the seafloor to tether the boat onto anchors that were permanently attached down there in the coral. This system prevented all the boats that came here from destroying the coral bottom by dropping heavy anchors down there. Once the boat was secured, we were free to snorkel to our hearts content! I really loved this snorkel spot! The water was much deeper here compared to other places we had snorkeled so far, but that in no way took away from the experience. There were tons of fish to be seen down there, and our boat operator even saw an eel hiding amongst the rocks down there! I must admit that the eel sighting freaked me out a bit - I found myself warily snorkeling around while trying to keep one eye on the eel. Fortunately, I soon realized the eel seemed quite content in its rocky hideaway and therefore was not likely to cause us any harm! Whew! After we'd had our fill of snorkeling here, we all re-boarded the boat - our next stop was a small harbour on the Island of Lanai, from which we could walk to Manele Bay to snorkel some more. After a short walk in the Hawaiian heat, we came to the beautiful beach surrounding Manele Bay:
We took the above photo from the lawn of the Manele Bay Hotel - a luxurious resort on the island of Lanai. After settling in at one of the many picnic tables scattered along the beach at the tree-line, we decided to check out the tide pools at the far end of the beach. Although we found it slippery on the rocks as we clambered towards the water, it was totally worth the effort as once we got into the tide pools, we found them to be full of fish! These pools were SO full of fish that they actually brushed up against us as we snorkeled here! VERY COOL! Once we'd had our fill of the tide pools, we proceeded back to the sandy beach to snorkel over the coral reefs located a short swim from the shoreline. There weren't as many fish here as there were in the tide pools, but it we still had a great time as we explored this rather large area. Manele Bay proved to be a great snorkel spot - with such a large area of calm waters to explore, we were never bored as we snorkeled all along the beach and reefs. We'd had a fantastic time snorkeling here, but when the time came to meet our boat in the small harbour again, we were actually quite excited to be leaving! Why on earth were we excited to leave the island of Lanai? Because on the return trip to Maui our boat captain was going to take us on a search for dolphins and whales! And WOW, did we ever have the most amazing luck with this! We saw whales swimming on their own...
I was in total awe at being so close to these magnificent creatures! I couldn't stop grinning as my heart pounded with excitement! I mean, can you believe that these wild dolphins would actually swim of their own free will so close to our boat?!? It was incredible! I was worried about them getting hurt on the rear propellers, but they seemed to know they should stay away from them, as they were mostly crowded around the front half of the boat. Our trip to the Island of Lanai was scheduled to last about 6 hours, but we were having such great luck with our dolphin and whale sightings, that our boat captain extended our trip by an extra hour or so! He seemed to be enjoying the dolphin and whale sightings as much as we were! But how could you NOT enjoy seeing these amazing animals! Prior to this experience, my sightings of dolphins had only been at various touristy marine parks... THOSE sightings just couldn't compare to seeing the dolphins here in the open sea as they gracefully glided through the water - occasionally delighting us with acrobatic leaps and twirls! I'm grinning ridiculously right this moment just at the memory of it! Sigh... Our day-trip from Maui to the Island of Lanai was so great that I can't wait to go back! More articles of interest: 1) Thinking of exploring more of Lanai? Click here for more information about things to see and do on the island of Lanai. 2) Wondering if you should book a daytrip to snorkel at Molokini too? Click here to read about our Molokini crater snorkeling experience!
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