More Hawaii

On our recent holiday, DH and I had lots of shore excursions to choose from when we were on the 7 day cruise.

 The ship stopped at four of the islands and it was our 2 day stop on the island on Maui that we did a tour that was certainly different to anything we have done before. Because DH doesn't enjoy helicopter or small aircraft tours, we avoid these. I wondered whether he minded 'depths'? There was this tour in the itinerary that he had dismissed as 'far too expensive'!  It probably was too expensive but I was very interested, so offered to pay for us to go if he was happy with going underwater.
And so it was that the next day, we left the ship about 9am and waited for our shuttle bus to the quaint town of Lahaina...it was a bit drizzly at Kahului, the town where the ship was docked.

But on the other side of the island, it was sunny! We had to go to Slip 18...

Yep! We were going on a submarine dive to look at coral reefs and fish...this was our shuttle boat...

It was glorious weather...

We travelled along the coastline for a while and the views were wonderful.

And then we headed out to sea so left the coastline behind...

The captain on our shuttle boat had kept up a commentary as we went along and suddenly he alerted us to a vessel coming towards us...it was 'Roxy' the support vessel.

The submarine that we were going out to board was somewhere below us. Our captain, Roxy's captain and the sub's captain were all in touch by a special telephone system. The Roxy crew make sure it's safe for the sub to surface, that is, no other vessels etc.
Now when we got to the dive site, my excited 'gung ho' attitude did waver a bit and I may have gone a bit quiet when I thought about boarding the sub with the waves heaving....
But excitement overtook fear when the submarine started to surface!


Roxy is moving in to stay on one side of the Atlantis...

Roxy helps hold the sub steady as our shuttle prepares to go into position on the other side of Atlantis...as our shuttle captain said, 'they make a sub sandwich'! Lol.

When all vessels were in place and ropes etc in place, then the transfer began. The previous dive group were loaded on the shuttle and we were able to board the submarine...climbing down ( back to the ladder stairs) to the viewing area. One lady in our group decided not to board the sub, fearing claustrophobia but I found it quite spacious...then again I'm small! Lol


On our 45 minute 'cruise' we saw many different types of coral, fish, a few giant eels, sharks, an artificial reef made by a deliberately sunk ship, The Carthaginian', stingrays etc etc and we were fully entranced!! The deepest the submarine went was 120 ft approximately. Most of the time it cruised at 100 ft below the surface but just for a few minutes, we went to the seabed.

The information posters on the wall of the submarine

DH took this photo of Roxy's propeller as we started to dive...

Part of the wreck of the Carthaginian.

In the next photo there is a shark lying on the sea bed. The guide on the sub commented that she may be preparing to give birth.

A bit more of that wreck...

One of the first variety of coral that we saw...

A shoal of fish; they are a lovely green/yellow colour

Another variety of coral

Towards the left of the photo, a big eel is poking his head out of the coral...amazing!



This fish looks like a cartoon, but it was real!

What a wonderful excursion! Even when the credit card bill came after we were home, I didn't blink an eye as it was just such an experience!  I'm a great believer in 'making memories' and this submarine excursion sure did that!