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Snorkeling Tours Sorted by Specific Tour
Kauai Boat Tours are a favorite on Kauai.
Consider Kauai Snorkeling Tours first as you are planning your vacation itinerary. You won't be alone, because snorkeling on one of the Kauai boat tours is the most popular activity on the island. Snorkeling is a part of almost every Kauai boat tour option from dolphin watching, to Napali Coast tours, Niihau Tours, rafting trips, scuba and snuba diving, sailing and even on some dinner cruises. Find out where these Kauai snorkeling tours depart from, how long they last and the best times of year to participate.
Kauai snorkeling tours are the single most popular visitor activity on the island of Kauai, and why wouldn't they be? Snorkeling on Kauai is excellent. You will find that almost all the Kauai boat tours whether they be Dolphin Excursions, Na Pali Coast Tours, Whale Watch Tours or the Niihau excursions famous on Kauai will offer snorkeling as a part of their tours. Tom Barefoot's Tours offers many of these tours at discount pricing.
Kauai is an island almost completely surrounded by reef and consequently also an abundance of sea life. It is not unusual for Kauai snorkel tours to encounter dolphins, turtles and even the occasional monk seal in addition to the generous quantities of reef fish and coral one would customarily expect to see on a snorkel tour.
Many of the best snorkeling tours on Kauai are available by boat departing from various locations on the island but snorkel tours can also be arranged to take you directly into the water from a beach. You can certainly even snorkel on Kauai directly from the beach on your own with snorkel and fins but caution should be advised to make sure the snorkel location you choose and the water conditions prevalent on the day you snorkel are safe for your snorkel adventure.
You can check with our Kauai Beach Guide to read about the beaches on the island but you will probably find that the organized Kauai snorkel tours will yield the best snorkeling results.
Kauai's coastline provides ideal conditions for snorkeling and the ocean surrounding Kauai contains a plethora of sea life, much of which you can see while snorkeling. - Kauai's coastline is both varied and beautiful ranging from the more gentle inlets and coves of the Poipu and south shore region to the dramatic, isolated and incredible shoreline of the Na Pali Coast, each of which providing for a great Kauai snorkel experience.
- If you're an inexperienced snorkeler and you're concerned about your Kauai snorkel adventure, don't worry. The myriad of Kauai boat tours that travel the waters around the Garden Isle will provide you with all the gear, flotation devices and instruction you need to make your Kauai snorkeling tour easy and fun.
What types of fish can you expect to see on your snorkel tour off Kauai?
- Moorish Idol
- Goat Fish
- Hawaiian Squirrel Fish
- Sea Cucumber
- White Mouth Moray Eel
- Butterfly Fish
- Trigger Fish
- Parrot Fish
- Cornet Fish
- Hawaiian Green Sea Turtles
- Hawaiian Spinner Dolphins
- Monk Seals
- Humpback Whales (in season)
Kauai Boat Tours and snorkeling charters. Here are a few types of boat options:
- Large Sailing catamarans that offer sailing before or after your snorkel are a good choice for your Kauai snorkel.
- Large and very stable and powerful power catamarans that would transport you quickly and with comfort to your various Kauai snorkel locations.
- Smaller zodiac or "rigid hulled inflatables" designed for small and more intimate snorkel experiences often providing you with Kauai snorkel locations that are inaccessible to other snorkeling boats.
- Small and private six passenger power catamarans that would provide a Kauai snorkel tour that would be just for you and your private group of friends and family.
Check out one of the snorkeling trips that depart from the shoreline rather than from the one of the Kauai Boat Tours.
- These snorkel tours will take you via van to some of the very best snorkeling locations and the water entry from the beach often makes the snorkel experience a bit less intimidating for the less initiated. These are great family activities for snorkeling.
- As an adjunct to your wonderful Kauai 'from the beach' snorkeling experience you are also likely to find that the Spinner and Bottle Nose Dolphins, the Hawaii Green Sea Turtles and Humpback Whales during the winter seasons, may all become a part of your snorkeling adventure as well.
Kauai Snuba Tours are similar to Kauai snorkeling tours.
- Snuba Tours are also included in the complement of Kauai snorkel trips. Snuba is a cross between scuba diving and snorkeling. A scuba tank is allowed to float on a floatation device at the surface above you. You swim perhaps twenty feet or so below and inhale air through a tube or hose. There are no tanks on your back. These tours also have entry from the shoreline so many beginners feel a bit more comfortable in trying this new experience.
Norwegian Cruise Line - Pride of America Cruise Ship:
The Snorkeling Tours on Kauai will not pick you up at the cruise ship pier. Your best bet is to either arrange for a taxi to take you to and from the departure location or to have Tom Barefoot's Tours arrange for a Rent-A-Car shuttle to pick you up at the Cruise boat pier. The best timing for most of these snorkeling tours is going to be on the Thursday afternoon or Friday morning of your cruise schedule.
Checkout Tom's Tips and Insights about Kauai Snorkeling Tours
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Tom's Tips - Kauai Snorkeling Tours
As is true of all the Hawaiian Islands, the activity of snorkeling is the very most popular. The ocean waters surrounding Kauai are healthy and fertile and there is much in the way of marine life to be observed. The neighboring island of Niihau is also a part of Kauai County and the pristine waters found there also offer up a bounty of sea life.
Dependent upon the time of year, the places you will find yourself snorkeling will be different. Summertime is spectacular for snorkeling along the remote areas of the Napali Coast. The ocean is often flat at this time of the year and many of the small and moderate sized boats can maneuver inside the scores of caves and land bridges that can be found on the coastline. Reef and fish are abundant in this area. Even kayak tours that take advantage of these calm conditions find remarkable snorkeling opportunities in the areas they can squeeze in because of their size... read more.
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Video Transcript
Snorkeling is a big-time deal on the island of Kauai, as it is on all the other Hawaiian islands.
It is particularly nice on Kauai because not only do you get a place to snorkel that's going to be a great place to do that, but the island itself is so incredibly beautiful just to be seen from off the coast as you cruise along going to your snorkel area. It is perhaps the single most beautiful island that we have from that vantage point, in the Hawaiian islands. Not to mention the fact that there are dolphins which really, really add to all the snorkel trips. It seems like all the trips we have going snorkeling end up running into Dolphins on Kauai. It's just amazing how that happens. Of course, during the whale season in the wintertime, we're also going to be able to see Whales as well, but dolphins really add to each and every one of the special cruises that we have there. People go out and do the snorkeling.
The snorkel trips, many of them go out to this area of the coastline on kind of the north side, which is referred to as the Napali Coastline. This is where you have the big giant cliffs that come straight down to the sea, absolutely amazing, one of the wonders of the world to see these. And then beautiful spots off the coastline where you can do some snorkeling. If you're there in the summer, which is primarily the time you want to be in Napali because the waves are not as big as in the winter. Winter, it can be just amazingly strong there and difficult on many days to actually get out there to do any snorkeling, but during the summertime, it's just beautiful. Usually very, very calm and you've got not only the cliffs that you can view and so on, but you've got caves that you can get into and snorkel around, and at least take your boats in there, the smaller ones in any event.
There's also some places that happen along the southern coastline that can be seen with snorkeling. There's places throughout the island of Kauai. Although primarily we have different boats that go out to do snorkeling on Kauai, there is one company we have that, if you didn't want to on a boat for some reason, you could go off the shoreline. It's fairly unique as a company. We don't have many of these that happen throughout the Hawaiian chain, but this is one that's been happening for quite a while, and people quite enjoy it. You'd actually just go in right from the shoreline, do some snorkeling. They transport you from your hotel out to the special area they do this, and then they teach you how to snorkel and so on, if you want to learn that. By the way, there's also another company that does SNUBA kind of in a similar way, so you can do SNUBA right off of the shoreline on Kauai.
But primarily the majority of people are going to go out on boats, and those really come in two varieties, larger boats and smaller boats. People usually gravitate toward one or the other. Larger boats are nice in the sense that they're big and they're sturdy. They're stable on the water, less movement, that kind of thing. Also, some of them have a couple decks, so on the top deck you've got really a great bird's eye view of what's going on, particularly looking at the Dolphins and that sort of thing.
The smaller boats are more like the Zodiacs or Radon-type boats. Much smaller, but much faster and much more maneuverable. Carry many less people, and give you a chance to cover more ocean. They're also nice in the sense that, since they are smaller groups and they may be 10 or 6 people on your trip ... maybe a little bit more ... maybe 15, depending on the boat that you're going on. But they give you more of an opportunity, I think, to ask questions of the captain and get a little bit more personalized and that sort of thing. Also the fact that you're just right there on the water seems a little bit more ... you're just closer to the marine environment than you are on the larger boats. But not everybody wants those.
A lot of the Zodiac-type boats, you have to be careful if you've got a bad back, or if you're kind of an older person, maybe, that doesn't feel like you have the balance and so on that you might need. You can actually end up in some areas where you're just kind of skimming over the surface of waves, and it can be a little bit harsher to your body. You need to be able to withstand that. Many, many people do. I think as a generalization, people that are younger or really physically younger are going to gravitate more toward those type of boats, and then the other ones are just a little more stable in the water.
Snorkeling big. It's probably the single biggest activity that we have on Kauai, and it's something that you should consider, because there's much more to it than just the snorkeling and the fish. But it's the beautiful views and the sightseeing from the ocean, and it's the whales, if that's time of year, and it's the Dolphins. They're there all the time. Definitely plan on enjoying a snorkel tour in Kauai.
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