Tsaiberspace

We rented snorkeling gear from Snorkel Bob’s near Waikiki, for $32/week (their “Ultimate Truth” package). The rental experience was very smooth, with a very helpful staff. You can do inter-island drop-off and pick-up for certain kinds of equipment (boogie boards, but not snorkeling gear) to avoid having to lug them on the plane if you are island-hopping.

At their website, they also advertise snorkeling with DolphinExcursions.com, where they pick you up from your hotel and drive you to the launch site (1-hr drive) for a 2-hr excursion to swim with dolphins and fish.

I don’t know how I felt about the experience. The snorkeling itself was great; the water was very clear, with good visibility, and we saw lots of stuff (dolphins, fish, octopus, turtle). But a few things didn’t seem quite right:

• I felt weird about the way we “hunted” dolphins, where once they were spotted, the operator basically had everyone stampede to within some distance of the pod for viewing.
• At the second site, I did see the operator throw a muffin overboard prior to the dive, and later, after more thought, I think this was to lure the fish to the surface. That seems wrong on both ecological (don’t feed the fish) and marketing (see lots of fish) grounds.