Damon and I tried snorkelling for the first time on our trip to Honolulu last week and we got some awesome underwater photos of our experience. We did the “Rainforest to Reef Tour” with Bike Hawaii, which is a half-day bike, sail and snorkel adventure. When I visited Oahu 7 years ago with my mom and brother, we went on a mountain biking tour in Kualoa Ranch that I loved, so I knew I wanted to go on a bike tour again this time around. Bike Hawaii no longer offers the Kualoa Ranch tour (the ranch is starting their own thing), so we signed up for the bike-sail-snorkel adventure. We also signed up for Bike Hawaii’s new single-track mountain biking tour for a different day, but after tour guides and the owner told us it was “excruciating” and “very difficult”, we got a little scared and changed our mind!
Our tour started off with lunch at a lookout that gave us a stunning view of the entire south shore of Oahu, including Diamond Head, Waikiki, University of Hawaii and more. The lookout point, called Tantalus Lookout, is on Pu’u ‘Ualaka’a State Park, which translates to “Hill of the Rolling Sweet Potato” lol :).
After lunch we went on an easy breezy downhill ride on cruiser bikes and enjoyed the warmth of the sun on our skin and all the smells of tropical weather, which let’s be honest includes the smell of hot garbage but also the wonderful smell of flowers, grass, trees and the ocean. After our ride we went on a catamaran to go to our snorkelling location. I’ve puked on a sailboat before, so I was immediately worried about seasickness (is it just me or do Asian girls get more motion sick than most?). We sailed to the waters facing Waikiki beach where we had a beautiful view of the Waikiki coastline and Diamond Head crater, and I made sure I turned my eyes to the coast on a regular basis.
After a brief introduction to snorkelling we put on our gear and jumped in the warm water. Looking in the water with snorkelling googles for the first time was pretty incredible. It was amazing and scary at the same time to see the depth of the water and all the living and active sea life. We saw fish cleaning the shells of sea turtles (cute), fish with neon blue stripes, camouflaged fish at the bottom of the ocean in the sand, and much more. We even touched an octopus (insert calamari joke).
If you’re visiting Oahu, I recommend checking out Bike Hawaii‘s tours. We had a great time with them and enjoyed having all the details like pick-up/drop off, gear rentals, etc. taken care of. This isn’t sponsored at all, I just had a good experience with them both times in Hawaii and they’ve been in the business for a long time. I definitely recommend going snorkelling as part of a tour so you can get away from the crowds by the beach and see more sea life.
Have you snorkelled before? My palm print bikini is from Goodnight Macaroon. Shop similar ones below.