Barrier Reef, Hawaii, United States

5shambhalaa 5:00 PM Feb 7, 2013

Snorkel heaven
We almost didn't make it. we had two days left. Called Molokai Fish and Dive on Monday for a Tuesday snorkel and were told they were only doing a dive tour. So we booked a whale watching tour for Tuesday instead. While at the wharf Tuesday morning, ran into the owner of Fish and Dive to be told that they were doing a combo dive and snorkel trip that morning. The new girl messed up (?) Anyhow, the whale watching was great, had a mom and baby come right up to the boat and the baby breached. After the whale watching, went to Fish and Dive and set up a snorkel for Wednesday morning (we flew out Wed afternoon). We had to buy a towel in town, go back to the wharf and shower at the public Restroom (which was clean). The snorkeling was the best. We saw the most turtles ever. We snorkeled two different spots that were equally good. Saw schools of papio, manini, wrasses, and many other reef fish. The snorkeling spots for this trip were west or the wharf. We stayed at mile 19 on the east side. The reef was about 200 yards out and protected the beach in front of our rental. The proximity did allow us to view whales spouting and breaching. We also did a SUP (stand up paddle) tour. Well, the wife did great, I on the other hand need at least a pair of french doors to stand up on. The site was at mile 6 beach. we paddled out and were able to see the reef below us. We were also close enough to the whales to actually hear them. We were astounded.

5AussieBonz 5:00 PM Feb 25, 2016

Lovely reef - lots of sea turtles, fish and coral
Molokai does not have great snorkeling directly off the beaches, so we took a boat trip out to the reef with Molokai Fish and Dive. It was well worth it. The coral is beautiful. There were lots of fish. But the highlight for us was the second snorkel site they took us to, because there were many sea turtles. At the second snorkel site there is a cleaning station for the turtles, where the turtles park themselves in the coral below and get cleaned by the small fish. We saw numerous turtles just hanging out there and swimming around us, more than we'd seen on any of our other trips to Hawaii.