- Ages 5+
- 2.5 Hours
A two and a half-hour guided snorkeling tour in Maunalua Bay to visit the resting and feeding areas of the green sea turtle.
Quick Details
We can get you into the Bay!
Guided snorkeling tour in Haunauma Bay, a nature preserve since 1974.
We can get you in when you can’t get a reservation.
Recent changes to Haunamau Bay entrance requirements have made this famous Bay less crowded, but harder to access. Daily passes sell out within minutes two day prior to entrance.
Our permit allows us to guide small groups (5 people) of snorkelers twice a day into the Bay, skipping the line and reservation process. We have very limited availability because of these rules.
All equipment, the $25 entrance fee, and at least one hour of guided snorkeling are included.
You do not need previous snorkeling experience or even need to swim well. Your guide will adapt the tour to your experience level.
A wide variety of fish life are constant companions in the bay, and turtle and monk seal sightings are common.
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Haunauma Bay Nature Preserve is primarily a great place to see marine life. Mostly a wide variety of fish, many of which are only found in Hawaii (endemic).
When you enter the water from the sandy beach, you will be able to sit down in shallow calm water to don your snorkeling equipment. Much of be best snorkeling is in water that is still shallow enough to stand up in!
The best Haunauma Bay snorkeling is along the interface between the rocky reef and the sand, this is where most of the fish will be found. One of the great things about having a snorkeling guide, besides the extra safety, is that they can tell you what fish you are seeing!
Don’t be surprised that the coral is all hard coral species, not the flowing wavy stuff you sometimes see on TV. It is all alive, and you should not touch it, but it looks a lot like a rock outcropping.
Besides the abundant close-up fish life, there are sea cucumbers, moray eels, green sea turtles, and even occasionally an endangered Hawaiian Monk Seal taking a nap on the beach.
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Haunauma Bay Nature Preserve has a gift shop, snack bar with lunch food, changing rooms and bathrooms on the beach, and freshwater showers for when you come out of the water. There is also a grass picnic area up looking over the Bay if you want to do a non-sandy picnic while you wait for your tour time.
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The parking lot generally fills up sometime around 930am. Parking is $3 and you have to have cash (which is weird as everything else in the park is credit card only).
So our tours start at our dive shop about 2 miles away, for gear fitting. From there you can ride over with us or drive yourself. You have to exit the park with your guide, but you get stamped on the way out, so re entry is easy.
On the afternoon tour, the parking lot will be full, so you will need to be dropped off with the guide and exit with them. The beach closes at 3pm , so it will be time to go anyway. The shop staff will come pick us up and back to the parking lot at the dive shop.
Contact us for transportation options from Waikiki.