‘Āhihi-Kīna‘U Natural Area Reserve — Attraction in Maui

This area along with honolua bay arey favorite snorkeling areas on Maui. The reef in this area is massive. Full of fish , coral and urchins. Both areas are painfully to the feet to get into and out of the water. I wear booties when I am at both of these sites. ahihi is on the south side of the island, Google map takes you right to the paid parking site. I have seen DNR checking for parking receipts which you place on your dashboard of your car. It is 5 dollars to park there. I don't want to know what a parking ticket is in Maui but I am sure it would hurt the wallet. The best place to get into water is at the far side of the beach and then swim out about 20 or 25 yards to get to the clear water. The reef goes out at least a hundred yards. You can go right or left. All directions in this area will give you a great experience. I have snorkeled this area at least 10 times and always see something new. Please check the snorkel report for the best locations for the day. It is published daily and gives you a number for the visibility quality. Google Maui snorkel report and it should be the first site that comes up. The new days report is usually posted in the morning by around 9am. It gives a number for the snorkel quality for the day. If it says an area is letting than 4, don't waste your time. 7.5 and above is great and in-between is a little cloudy but you will still enjoy. It gives ratings for the south shore, Ka'anapali, and the northwestern shores. In most of the bays stay to the sides. Never go to the center unless you like to look at sand. ahihi is the exception to this. Anywhere you go here, you will be pleased but I prefer going left. At Honolua bay, stay To the right and you have to go out about 75 to 100 yards to get to the good stuff. Just go to the location there where you see the boats dropping people off. In Honolua bay, we have seen turtles, eels, an octopus, huge schools of fish and as of 1 week ago an 8 foot white top shark that was taking a little nap under a ledge. We just let that one go. Never poke a bear with a stick while he is sleeping. Have fun and go get some memories that will last a...

This is a great place to snorkel if you are an advanced snorkeler. PLEASE do not attempt if you are not a confident swimmer. You can do a lot of damage to this area if you don't know what you're doing.

There is a good variety of fish and I even saw some new ones here! There are two entrances into the water, and neither are particularly easy to do: one requires entering over rocks that hurt to walk across and has shorebreak waves and the other is sand and then quickly turns into a shallow entrance onto the reef (that you don't want to step on and hurt). I personally prefer the bay entrance area (I tried both), which requires a walk along the road down to the fish entrance sign. I saw some huge fish and an octopus in that area. I did see a nice moray eel swimming on the other side, though.

It's kind of hard to get to since it requires you to drive down narrow roads that sometimes can only fit one car for two ways of traffic. There is a parking lot at the end that costs $5 to park at if you are not a...

Beautiful black sand (rock) beach. The beach is mainly made up of black rocks, but it makes for the most picturesque contrast to the blue water. This peaceful location requires a little bit of walking, so bring the right shoes and there is a $5 parking fee for non residents.

If you decide to get in the water prepare for the most awesome snorkeling right off shore. We didn't go far because we had the little ones with us, but I was so impressed with how many fish and coral we could see. This was a perfect first snorkel for our girls because the water was calm and the views were...