On the west coast of Maui is the main tourist destination of Lahaina. Once an old whaling town in the 1820s, it’s now a cute bustling town with restaurants, bars, souvenir shops and tour operators. We decided to drive the 1 1/2 hrs from our place in Haiku to check it out and hopefully try and organise a snorkel to Molokini Crater for the following day. The drive was beautiful because we took the longer coastal route (driving isn’t a chore in Hawaii because you go at a relaxed pace and there is so much to see along the way).
As soon as we got there, we were approached by a lady from a tour operating company who was trying to sell us different activities that you could do on the island. Interested, we followed her into her shop to find out more about prices and she introduced us to time shares. Basically in Hawaii (we found more predominantly in Maui) a lot of the tour operators will work with companies that instead of spending money on traditional advertising will pay for or heavily discount activities that you would like to do. In exchange you have to sit through a seminar where they try and convince you to buy shares (although not obligated) in something. On this occasion we would have had to drive to this resort, sit through a 90 min presentation and tour the hotel and then drive back to Lahaina if we wanted to actually see the town.
Despite how short on time we were we decided to go because it meant our half day snorkel trip to the crater would be $19 USD instead of $89. Whilst going through the requirements, she booked us in for the snorkel trip and asked for our credit card. She couldn’t give us a straight answer as to why we had to pay for the snorkelling with credit card (we wanted to use cash) so immediately alarm bells went off (very old fashioned off us I know) and we backed out of the deal. I actually felt relieved that we didn’t have to waste our time going to the seminar and we had a really enjoyable afternoon looking around Lahaina, shopping and relaxing at the beach. We did end up buying a snorkelling trip for $69 for the following morning (usually weather and visibility conditions are better in the morning which is why afternoon sessions have discounts).
The next morning we got up nice and early and went down to the harbour to catch our boat to Molokini Crater. The volcanic crater is partly submerged and erosion has resulted in only a crescent shape above water, which at it’s highest point is 49 meters. Hawaiian legend says that Pele the goddess of volcanoes became angry when one of her lovers secretly married a water lizard. In a jealous rage, she chopped the lizard in half and turned her into stone, the tail being what you see of Molokini today. Regardless of how it was formed, it’s pretty cool to say we snorkelled in a crater.
It’s only about 45 mins from the main land to get to Molokini. Once there, there are hundreds of species of fish and marine life to see. Depending on which company you go with and how much you pay will depend on what food you get. I think all of them serve lunch, some with breakfast as well and others even have open bars. After we had lunch, we then went to a second spot called Turtle Town where we unsurprisingly saw turtles – which I love! There are other things to see there as well but the turtles are the most exciting.
All in all it was a good day and I’m glad we did it, but there is a lot of hype surrounding what many people call the number one snorkel spot in Hawaii. We have done quite a lot of snorkelling prior, so although beautiful I didn’t find this spot overly impressive. If you are a traveller on a budget there are many other great places to snorkel in Hawaii for a lot cheaper price.
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