Sorry for the late reply, I thought I was on notifications but missed your question.

The short answer to your question is – I wish I knew!! Before we went I thought I had done due diligence, I got the eguides, which are excellent from a practical and navigating perspective, and also sought advice from a friend who is a marine water quality student at the University in Hilo and her suggestions pretty much lined up with the eguides.

As you are coming from Australia, I am from New Zealand, I am guessing you have experienced Pacific Islands which is my background: Fiji, Rarotonga, French Polynesia etc. In my opinion it is a very different experience, snorkeling is much more crowded everywhere in Hawaii and in general beach access/parking/driving is frustrating. However I could have accepted that if the water conditions were good and that was my main disappointment.

I don’t know if it was bad luck with weather or time of year, hopefully you will get some more advice on that here. As for the places I visited I tried to pick good ones from the eguide so don’t think that was the issue, they are just different to what I am used to.

Having said this if you can sort the issue with conditions, I am sure it would be great, we saw lots of turtles, plenty of fish and in groups bigger typically than I would see in Fiji. Coral is not as varied but still good.

Good luck.

Hello Ray (and Mignon), we are coming from Australia for this time next year also primarily for snorkeling. What would have made the snorkeling a better experience do you think? Was it the time of year? Or just bad luck with the weather? Or the places that you visited? Thank you.

We may have missed or misunderstood the weather conditions but were generally disappointed with snorkeling conditions with poor visibility and a general lack of coral unless you found the ‘sweet spots’. We did all snorkeling in the morning as suggested.

Molokini Crater was an exception with wonderful clarity and fish. We also took an early boat and whilst less crowded than later trips it was still quite crowded and we were limited to a relatively small area around our boat. All the other locations we visited on Maui had poor visibility from Slaughterhouse Bay (recommended by a snorkel shop and not too bad) to all the locations around Wailea.

Kona on the Big Island was better with good snorkeling at Two Steps although crowded and poorly upkept. Kahaluu Bay was OK and Captain Cook was quite good, although again busy and no chance to explore. The Manta Ray night snorkel was disappointing and again may have been bad luck, the sea was choppy and for some reason our boat had to moor on the edge of the mass of light rafts and as such we saw few rays and not close. I have snorkeled with oceanic rays in Fiji and it was a much better experience.

On the plus side we saw turtles at almost every location even with sometimes very bad visibility which was a surprise to us.

Overall, whilst a good holiday overall, I would not visit Hawaii again for snorkeling unless I understood and had a better solution for the visibility. We saw some neat fish and large schools but generally it was a frustrating experience.

🐠 Aloha, Cammie!

😊Thank you for your reply and the info! I just purchased and downloaded Nicole & Galen’s Maui guidebook.

🐠 Mahalo, Ruth, for the Molokini info!

We went with Kai Kanani for the sunrise snorkel.

The Snorkel Store offers a daily snorkel report. It came too late in the morning to be of use for us and we didn’t always agree with the report when we were there, but to get an overall sense of conditions, it was useful.

Aloha Cammie, which local snorkeling reports did you sign up for? We are 5 hours ahead of Hawaii, so the early morning trip to Molokini from Wailea sounds interesting. Is there a company you recommend?

🐠 Mahalo for all the info! 🐡

🐠 Mahalo for the info! 🐡 We were wondering how the visibility was after the tsunami. Happy everyone in Hawaii was safe!

🐠 Mahalo for the info! 🐡

🐠 Mahalo for the info! 🐡

🐠 Mahalo for the info! 🐡

🐠 Mahalo for the info! 🐡

🐠 Mahalo for the info! 🐡

🐠 Mahalo for the info! 🐡

🐠 Mahalo for the info! 🐡

As others have said, Nicole and Galen’s guide is terrific! Over the years it feels like the number of fish is decreasing and coral health not as strong, but if you can’t get to Indonesia or the Red Sea, Maui works!

Early on in our stay we took an early morning (6:15 or so) catamaran sail out to Molokini from Wailea, and loved the lack of crowds. We were pretty jet lagged, so the early start was an advantage. Professional and safe staff. It was worth the cost since you can’t swim out to Molokini. 😉

We also did the “mother reef” at Mile Marker 14 that starts with an O and while we didn’t see anything as interesting (besides turtles which we saw almost everywhere), it was still spectacular and in about 75 minutes we probably only saw 15% of the reef. Kapalua Bay was also excellent.

In all cases we accessed from the shore though in many cases we saw boat snorkel trips in the same area, you don’t need to take a boat trip for any of the above, and there was always some parking.

Visibility: during the last week of July, typically in the water between 9:30 and noon, was between “clear” and “shockingly clear” for the first five days of our trip. The last few days coincided with a tsunami that took place across the Pacific after the sixth largest recorded earthquake in history and likely contributed to very mucky water (though oddly, the clearest day of all did happen the morning after the tsunami).

Wonderful Marion, we are glad you like the housing for your phone!