Snorkeling at Napili and Kapalua Beaches

If you love to snorkel, Maui will not disappoint you! There are so many excellent places to choose from. If you are traveling with someone who loves to snorkel, and you don’t, grab a book, a beach chair and umbrella and enjoy the beautiful beaches along the shore. My husband LOVES to snorkel, me….not so much. I enjoy it, yet it pushes me past my comfort level regarding not wanting to be eaten by a shark. For those of you who follow my blog, you will know that I researched shark attacks before we went snorkeling at Kealakekua Bay in Hawaii. To see how many shark attacks have been reported on any of the Hawaiian Islands you can follow this link, it will tell you where and when they occurred. My blog stats tell me how many people click on the links I provide, not who, just how many, and the link to the shark attack information gets the most clicks. I think it’s kind of funny and it makes me feel like checking shark attack stats before you go swimming in the ocean is a completely normal behavior. Seeing that the odds are incredibly high in my favor and really wanting to swim with turtles was enough to get me in the water. 

We started our morning at The Gazebo restaurant, which is located at the far end of Napili Beach. There is a small amount of parking here, but it is for patrons only, so our thought was eat here so we can park here. The Gazebo is also part of the Napili Shores Maui, so even eating at the Gazebo does not guarantee you parking. The restaurant boasted that they had the best Macadamia Nut Pancakes on the island. My husband and I both had pancakes, they were good, but not phenomenal. The wait was insane, over an hour, but we did not want to risk having to park miles away and the view from the Gazebo was spectacular. I left my husband in line to go check out the beach and was happy to discover tide pools as far as the eye could see right in front of the restaurant.

I happily explored and took pictures of the cool sea life that was all around me. I thought there was white string in the water when I first saw this, it wasn’t. I still have no idea what it was, but it was alive.

After I had my fill, I went back to the line and sent my husband to explore. He saw a small octopus, but wasn’t quick enough to snap a photo of it before it hid itself in a crevice.

When we were finally seated, we were rewarded with this lovely view. We had a leisurely breakfast before heading over to the beach.

Can you tell which one of us is more excited from this photo? This is what was running through my mind, “Swim with turtles, turtles, turtles, turtles, sharks, turtles, turtles, turtles, cold water, turtles, turtles, turtles, fish swimming at my face, turtles, turtles, turtles.” I was trying somewhat successfully to keep a turtle mantra going in my head. The owners of our condo provided snorkel sets for two, beach chairs, towels and an umbrella, which was really nice. I decided that I’d like to get used to the water temperature before I strapped the mask to my head. It was cold, I was freezing. I know it was just me, as the beach was full of people happily swimming in the ocean, but I could not warm myself up. I even wore a wet suit (shorts and jacket) to help myself stay warm. Unfortunately I picked a jacket with fabric for sleeves so my arms were freezing and I looked quite ridiculous trying to keep my arms out of the water…..also not a good way to swim. The current at this beach was a little strong, it pulled me in about 6 feet every time it passed. I was holding on to my husband so that I wouldn’t keep getting pulled farther and farther away from shore. I was picturing myself being pulled right out to sea, with my teeth chattering, and the sharks waiting, so I opted out of snorkeling here.

Instead, I parked myself on the beach with my book and was happy as a clam. My husband went out snorkeling, but kept coming back to the beach to check on me. He kept trying to convince me to go snorkel with him and he couldn’t understand that I was perfectly happy with my book, watching kids build sand castles, and immensely enjoying watching people try to get in and out of the water in flippers (some of them were hysterically unsuccessful). After his third attempt, I suggested that we try another beach, Kapalua, which was only 5 minutes away, but was supposed to be a calmer beach. (We initially choose Napili because Fodor’s said it was a ‘turtle-filled pool’.) We saw no turtles here, although it is possible that was because we were there late morning, early afternoon.

We packed up and headed over to Kapalua Beach. There is a small parking lot at the beach and we were lucky enough to arrive as someone was leaving. If you are not able to park in the lot, people park up and down the road, which is very narrow and made us nervous and could involve a long walk to the beach carrying all of your stuff. When we returned the next day for more snorkeling, the lot was full; however, I noticed a huge parking lot across the street. I suggested that we go check it out, that we just might have to buy something to be able to park there. It was actually a tennis facility, but they offered unlimited parking for $5, which we immediately agreed to.

At the end of the parking lot is a tunnel, which you walk through to get to the beach, which is postcard perfect! The bay is more enclosed, which is why the water was calmer here. The current was only pulling me a foot or so, and the water was (I convinced myself) not quite as cold. I am a competent swimmer, but I do not swim often, so I am not a strong swimmer. I was still a little concerned about the current so I invented ‘tandem snorkeling’. What is that, you ask? It’s when you grab ahold of the strap of the waterproof bag your husband is wearing around his waist with his keys, cell phone and money in it, and you hold on for dear life, while you and your partner awkwardly try to swim using one arm and not kick each other. We actually did remarkably well the first time we tried it.

There was so much to see! I was happily surprised that the Moray eels did not completely terrify me, mostly because they were near the bottom of the ocean and paid no attention to us whatsoever. I did keep popping my head up to make sure we weren’t drifting out of the bay (we never even got close to that happening). In fact, I am 99.9% sure I would have been fine with out attaching myself like a leech to my husband, but there was still that .1% of doubt that kept me holding on. We were heading back to the beach when a turtle swam right in front of us and looked at us with one big eye like he was wondering why the heck we were attached to each other. I was so excited, I wanted to swim right after it, but my husband pointed out the sharp rocks that it was headed for.

I stayed on the beach for a while reading, while my husband went out snorkeling on his own, but I was so excited about the turtle that I wanted to go back out. I decided to wear the flippers this time, erroneously thinking it would be helpful in our tandem adventures. Our second time was not so successful. The flippers just made it more likely that I would get kicked as we swam. I still saw really cool stuff, but I got tired of getting kicked, so we went back to shore.

It was also getting to be late afternoon, the current was getting stronger and my husband actually had to expend effort to swim against the current to get us back to shore, so I decided to stay on the beach. Also, according to my shark attack research, more attacks happen near dusk because the water gets churned up and the sharks do not realize they are eating a person. I told him that I was not interested in anything besides turtles. He said he was going to swim one more time and then we’d go get dinner. He got to the edge of the water and called to me. I knew he saw turtles so I grabbed his cell phone and went running.

I was so excited and so annoyed that I had left my camera at the condo. They look remarkably like the rocks in the ocean. I never quite understood their camouflage until I saw them blend in perfectly among the rocks. I learned they like to come in and eat at the water’s edge in the late afternoon, early evening. These pictures were taken at 3:50.

I was happily snapping away, watching the turtles (they really don’t do much, but they entertained me nonetheless). Eventually I noticed that the beach was fairly empty and the sun was getting low. I waved to my husband the next time his head popped up to get him to get out of the water. He swam back and said, “The water’s really getting murky.” I shared my shark knowledge with him and told him that I wasn’t comfortable with him staying in the water, even though the last ‘attack’ at Kapalua was in 2001 and only involved damage to a surf board and not a person. He agreed to stay out of the water and we decided to return tomorrow after visiting Nakalele Blowhole and the Olivene tide pools.

When we went back the next day, I happily went in hoping to spot more turtles. We decided to head over to the rockier area, as so many people were snorkeling there we figured there must be a lot to see. Well, that was a bad choice. I’m not even sure what people were looking at and the current kept pulling us towards the jagged rocks. At one point, my husband had to put his hand out on the rock and all that was going through my head was, he’s going to cut himself, can we get to shore before a shark smells the blood. Well, that may have been a little dramatic as I think we were less than 10 feet from shore, but still, I saw Jaws and blood in the water is not a good thing. He did not cut himself, but we were both going to crash into the rocks, so I let go of him and immediately started swimming straight for shore. He caught up with me after I swam half way back and grabbed onto me. We swam back together and he said in a panic, “Why did you let go? I thought you were going to get pulled out to the ocean.” I thought, “Well, who’s being dramatic now.” I informed him that I mathematically calculated the risk of us getting cut on the rocks and being eaten by a shark versus me getting pulled out to the ocean when he would obviously catch up to me and pull me back to shore before that was even a remote possibility and I decided to let go.

He was a little shook up, I was not. We decided to sit on the beach and read for awhile. He realized that was an enjoyable thing to do and stopped feeling bad that he wanted to be in the water more than I did, which was a win-win. In case, I am scaring you away from this bay, children were snorkeling here. You can snorkel where you can still stand up and see an amazing variety of fish. I thought it was the perfect location and the water in usually calm here, especially morning and early afternoon….and there are turtles!

We didn’t see any turtles on that expedition and I was getting tired of swimming, so I said again, “I’m not going back in the water for anything except turtles.” Well, of course, they came back to the shore. My husband was out snorkeling, so I grabbed my mask and headed in alone. Very brave you might think, but not really, I could stand up at any time and walk five feet and be on the beach. You legally have to give turtles their space and can not interfere with their activities, so I was trying to keep my 10 foot distance underwater. It was much harder than I anticipated because the waves kept pulling me closer and then pushing me back. Well, the closer part wasn’t a problem, I could hold myself back, but as the waves pulled away from the shore, the turtles liked to upright their bodies and let the waves push them much farther back than the waves would push me. It would have been funny to have seen what I looked like from shore trying to keep my distance from these turtles. I kept trying to move farther down the shore to get out of their way, but they just kept moving right along with me. I was savoring the moment when another swimmer noticed the turtles, swam over and was floating near me, watching, as well. Well, two viewers were more than the turtles liked and they swam away. We both stood up and the swimmer asked me, “Did you see that shark?” I said, “No!” and ran out of the water. He thought that was quite funny and informed me it was a species of shark that is not known for attacking people. I said, “My husband is out there, where is it?” He said, “You really don’t need to worry.” I thought, “Thank you for your opinion, Jacques Cousteau.”

Not heeding his advice, I worried while scanning the water trying to identify my husband’s head. I tried to calm myself by thinking that there were a lot of people in the water and he could surely outswim most of them. Not very nice, but I thought it anyway. I eventually found him, waved him down and he came swimming over. I told him someone saw a shark and he responded, “I know, it was so cool, I saw it too! It’s hiding under a rock ledge.” He also claimed it was a harmless species of shark. Apparently, everyone on the beach was now a shark expert. I told him our snorkeling adventures had come to a close. It was now late afternoon, the water was getting murky, and there was, in fact, a shark in the water. He was satisfied that he had thoroughly explored the entire bay and happily packed up our stuff, all while telling me about the shark.

We headed back to our condo to order a pizza and watch the sunset from our lanai. Our next day’s adventures took us to Nakalele Blowhole, on the northeastern side of the island! As always, wishing you happy travels (shark free waters) and fantastic adventures in this thing called life.

(All pictures are available for purchase as Fine Art Prints or Digital Downloads at full resolution through Alamy. If you see something you like, click on the link. If you are unable to find it, use the Contact Me page and I will make sure the image is available.)

If you are interested in any of our other tide pool adventures, check out the links below.

Kaloko Honokohau National Park

Kealia Pond National Wildlife Refuge

Visiting the Point Loma Tide Pools in San Diego

 

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