Hawai'i 3: Maui, Day 2

Gee, an early morning! I had to be in Lahaina at about 8:15am, and it was a 40-50 minute drive from the hostel. Today, Merrill has booked me on a dolphin tour. We left Lahaina on the Explorer in fabulous weather. While it seemed to be always very windy at Ma'alaea, it was much better here - at least today. The crew were Carlos (skipper) and Jes and Steve as naturalists. The tour was not fully booked, which provided lots of space on the boat. Just hardly any space with shade though. But PWF offers reef safe sunscreen for free. This is a fantastic initiative, since it is not petroleum based (most sunscreens are!), and thus not harmful for the marine life. Imagine a large number of snorkelers and swimmers, all nicely covered with suncreen, which then washes off when the people are in the water, and pollutes the environment... And it works well. I covered my winter-white self with it, and only got sunburn around my wrist where I missed a couple of spots around the watch! Since my main interest in research is in the area of interpretation and education on marine (wildlife) tours, I had a particular interest in the way the PWF works. They have an excellent reputation for good interpretation on their tours (after all it were Paul and Greg who were among the first researchers addressing these issues), and I was not to be disappointed. Jes and Steve were very different individuals, approaching the people on board in very different ways. And both did a great job, and from the reaction I saw in the passengers they appreciated it as well. Here are some photos related to interpretation/eduction on board:

We passed some beautiful land/sea-scapes, and it was not long before we encountered the first dolphins. These guys were Spinner dolphins, and were in a protected no-go zone. Thus, we were unable to get anywhere close, and could only observe them from quite some distance. Two of the dolphins paid a very quick visit to the boat, but disappeared just as fast as they came over. So we went on to find another pod...

Well, it took a while, but it was worth the wait (and search): We did find a pod of Pantropical Spotted dolphins. According to Steve this is relatively rare - on most of the trips they encounter the Spinner dolphins. While I have seen many dolphins before, I had never seen Spotted or Spinner dolphins, thus today was a real treat for me!

This is my favourite photo. I never had such a smooth sea when
taking photos of dolphins or whales!

Another nice one :)

All to soon was this trip over again. I guess I can spend hours and hours on the water, especially when marine mammals are around. The afternoon was free for me, so I walked over to the Atlantis booth in the harbour and checked if they had a space available for the same day. Lucky me - the next tour left about 15 minutes later, and they had a few seats left. So I was in! Atlantis Submarines are a company running a number of submarines for tourists. Well, they are actually submersibles, since the term "submarine" usually refers to military subs. We were brought by tender to the dive site, and a few minutes later the Atlantis IX appeared at the surface.

We then had to "walk the plank", from the tender to the sub, and entered it via small narrow stairs. I had a seat pretty much behind the pilot (yes, they talk all aviation on this sub, and the captain has 4 stripes, etc.).

The sub then submerged and we went down into the abyss (well, almost...;-). It was quite an amazing experience, and felt almost like in a movie. We saw plenty of fish passing by, a ship wreck, and some divers.

At some stage, the pilot set the sub on the bottom, which was at this point at a depth of 131ft (40 meters).

And after our time was up (as always, far too soon), we surfaced again, and then had to transfer back to the tender, while the next group boarded the Atlantis IX. We then had the opportunity to watch it submerge again, before we were brought back to shore.

Now, that was a day on and under the water! On the way back I stopped at the PWF HQ, but Merrill was not at her office. So I headed back to Kahului, had some dinner, and went back to the hostel. Again, I fell asleep pretty much immediately, which was just as well, since I had to get up even earlier next morning...