Bob Marlin Charters — Local services in Oʻahu

An Unforgettable Snorkel Cruise on Oahu's North Shore Rating: ★★★★★ (5/5) I spent the morning on a Bob Marlin snorkel cruise on the North Shore of Oahu, leaving from Haleiwa Harbor, and it was an absolutely fantastic experience.

We had no trouble finding parking in the boat harbor at 7:40 am for our 8 am departure. Made our way to Pier 300.

The boat itself is beautiful! It seemed well maintained and equipped— we were snorkeling, but I could see it would be super fun for a fishing excursion. i liked the boat's size. It struck a nice balance, nicely accommodating our small group of friends without feeling crowded, and not a huge tour boat with 100 other passengers, either. I just couldn’t believe we had this sweet boat all to ourselves. We brought some snacks and drinks to share. We were prepared to swim, but were able to store our bags, with dry clothes & towels, in the cabin. We brought our own snorkel gear but they had some to borrow if needed.

Really nice and cool in the early morning, motoring out of Haleiwa Boat Harbor— everyone had a cup of coffee in our hands. I wish I could start every day like this!

Just as we left Haleiwa Harbor, some spinner dolphins approached the boat and swam alongside. We cruised along the North Shore and passed beautiful Waimea Bay.

Our Skipper Ge, was capable, kind, agile. He seemed completely at home on his boat, doing his job.

We stopped to pick up a mooring and snorkeled in a fantastic spot.

Then we had some snacks, swam, and chilled to some great onboard music as we returned to Haleiwa Harbor.

Bring sun screen and your friends! So fun!

Bob Marlin cruise along the North Shore of Oahu was an incredible experience from start to finish. Mahalo!...

4/09/21-4/18/21 was our trip in Hawaii and this below is just unprofessional!

Was looking forward to this trip for months as we planned our trip to Hawaii, we booked the private tour for 2 so we could do some fishing and snorkeling, everything was set and ready to go and then 2 days before we jumped on the plane to come to this beautiful island we get a call saying hey we have to do some repairs so we would like to moved your charter back a few days so we agreed on a date no problems, then the night before the new date we get another call saying that we have to cancel due to poor conditions and that snorkeling wasn’t good now keep in mind we have already snorkeling several times on other trips we had planned while we where here, so we again get bumped back now this time the owner/captain? Said he would call us the next day at 2 to confirm our appointment again well we never got a call so the next day we waited and waited and around 7pm we get a email saying they are canceling our trip an issuing a refund like why not call us and explain what’s going on? Whatever right? The. About 9pm the same night they call and tell us that they would make more money taking a bigger group out instead of us for less time, but he would call his friend to amd we could go out with him instead but it would only be fishing that we could do oh and it would be more money then the 1200.00 we already paid for this trip and less time! Like wow people at least be respectful and explain to us why!

I highly recommend you do not book or even waste your time contacting these people! Probably the most disrespectful business I have...

Well, sometimes, it’s just the result that matters. About two hours into a 10-hour charter, Captain Kevin tells us he has bad and good news. The bad news was that he had a bad fuel line leak, and it’s a custom part, so we had to head in. The good news was he wasn’t charging us. We were only an hour out of the harbor. About five minutes after we started it, we got a fish on. We could tell it was big, but not what it was. It didn’t have any normal behavior. After an hour, we got it about 40” from the boat. The Blue Marlin (now known as Bob) figured out he was hooked and took off big time. Jumping and running and pulling out an easy thousand yards of line. We thought it was a good 300–400-pound fish.  It was a good 300 yards away from us. He settled, and my 10-year-old grandson reeled as we worked Bob to the boat.  It took us an hour to get him back to the boat.  We realized he was a big fish. We gaffed him and pulled his head in through the door, realizing he was bigger than we thought. It took two of us on gaffs and one on a tail rope to get this beast onto the boat.  He didn’t fit!  We had to drive with his tail hanging out of the door!

The catch of a lifetime!!!!

Catching a fish like that has much to do with luck.  But Kevin and GE worked to get this fish. I’ve done many charters, and all do them well. But Bob aside, this was a superior experience. The gear, knowledge, and cleanliness of the boat were top-notch. Finding a good charter without recommendations is hard, but you can’t go wrong with Bob Marlin. Maybe you’ll get Bob’s uncle...