Snorkelling in Honolua Bay

Maui is a well-known destination, popular for its many golden beaches, humpback whales every winter, and toney destination resorts such as Ka‘anipali and Wailea. For those who focus on underwater life, however, there is a less well known world-class snorkeling spot in West Maui that should not be missed: Honolua Bay in lush West Maui.

Located just ten minutes north of tree-lined Kapalua Bay (ranked more than once the most beautiful bay in the USA or the world), Honolua Bay is best known as a major winter surfing break. But the rest of the year, it provides an opportunity to swim in protected waters with exceptionally large specimens of a wide range of colorful Hawai’ian fish: bluespine unicornfish, pearl wrasse, bluestripe butterflyfish, dense schools of aholehole, zebra moray eels, great barracuda (to four feet long), bluefin trevally and much more. As this is a Marine Life Conservation District, these fish need not fear snorkelers, and most will let you get very close for deliciously detailed views of their colorful markings. On our last visit, we encountered a dense ball of more than 1000 six inch aholehole (Hawai‘ian flagtails) so thick you could not see through it. To swim into such a ball, and have the school surround you, and then flow off like a silver river, is sublime, and seldom experienced these days. Come for the beautiful fish, truly the flowers of the sea, and enjoy the scenic beauty of West Maui along the way.

5 / 5 Review by expert member Mel & Judy Malinowski

Have you been here? Why not add your own review or report an error.

If you liked that, you might like these...

• 

  Snorkeling around and under Lizard Island

  Not usually a coral enthusiast, I usually prefer meeting large fish when I‘m snorkeling, I have to say that I was overwhelmed by the colourful, and...

• 

  Great Barrier Reef

  Diving for me is a magical experience and diving the Great Barrier Reef was the one of the finest and exotic dives that I’ll never forget. Not only...

• 

  Snorkel with Humpbacks in Rurutu

  Rurutu is a small but lush and bountiful island with a colourful barrier reef edging on to the lagoon. If you like seeing bigger fish and sharks in...

• 

  Snorkeling East of Eden, Koh Payu

  This is my second favourite snorkeling island of the Similan group, it’s fringed by a shallow reef of plate and staghorn corals highlighted by a...

• 

  Snorkel and diving Devil's Crown, Floreana Island

  Perhaps the finest snorkeling and diving in the Galapagos is to be found off Floreana island at Devil’s Crown, an extinct volcanic crater located a...