My family and I just returned from eight wonderful days on Maui. My wife and I agree that the highlight of the trip was our snorkel trip around the Island of Lanai with Ocean Riders.

Before leaving for Maui, I reasearched different snorkel trips with different companies and decided that the trip offered by Ocean Riders was the best. They take you around the complete Island of Lanai which is quite an adventure and very fun.

From the moment I picked up the phone to make my reservation to when we stepped off the boat we were treated like VIP's!!

The snorkel gear the have for use is top notch and never leaked. (Unlike the ones we rented from a dive shop) They take you to three different coves to snorkel and we never had anyone else (other tour boats) with us at any time, it was like we had the whole island to ourselves!

The sandwich tray for lunch was perfect, best tuna I have ever had!! You don't need a gourmet lunch when you are trying to spend as much time in the water as possible. Save that fancy stuff for dinner and enjoy true point of the trip..snorkeling!!

Chad the owner, and Patty the Captain were knowledgable and very helpful of my young Daughter. She is obsessed with turtles and it was the highlight of her trip that she got to see and swim with one in the wild. WOW!! What a thrill!!

The added bonus of our trip was we went during whale season. Earlier in the week we went on a whale watching trip with another company and the boat was very crowded and the trip was only two hours long. With Ocean Riders we were so close to the water because the boat is smaller and designed different the the whale watching boats the view was spectacular. We had a whale do a full breach right near us. It was like being at Sea World in the wild!!! Patty made sure we did not go back to the harbor before we saw plenty of whales. Her and Chad seemed to be enjoying that part of the trip as much as the customers were.

To sum it up, I would say if you want to go on an adventure, and not just a snorkel go with Ocean Riders, they are THE BEST!!

We booked Ocean Riders because it described the adventure as the only complete circumnavigation around Lanai from Lahaina, Maui. It includes three snorkel opportunities too. We were not dissappointed.

The trip begins with a check-in, some administrative instructions and paperwork, and a very light breakfast consisting of fruits and various granola breakfast bars...good thing because the ride over and the north Lanai shoreline is very bumpy....we enjoyed the ride because we knew what to expect from other rafting trips....it is a truly adventurous, but safe, wild ride across the open ocean channel and around the North shore of Lanai, called Ship Wreck beach. If you want a wild ride, sit in the front, otherwise, hunker down in the back and take the offer of a rain jacket...you'll be glad you did. (HINT: The right side of the boat faces the wind on the rider over to Lanai and on the North shore and gets the most wet.
The back of the boat is the calmest, but the rightmost back seat gets the wettest...that is where I sat. I laughed the whole time I was getting wet.....after all, I was going snorkelling anyway!

Once around the North shore, the sea calms down as does the ride. You will come to the first of three snorkel locations (Captain's choice)...it was excellent. Calm, protected water for even us not-so-good swimmers...but lots of variety in the fish.

The second location had even more fish, this time in schools and was also very interesting because of it's proximity to sea caves. Again, very mild water conditions that made snorkeling a pleasure. Got lots of good pictures. After the 2nd snorkel, we had a deli lunch with make-your-own sandwiches with various meats and cheeses, pasta salad, tuna salad, olives, condiments, candy bar treats, etc. There was plenty of good tasting food.

After the lunch, we took off for the third snorkel location and encountered some large dolphin-like fish....the captain said they were false killer whales...they had a blowhole and were larger than dolphins, but very playful and non-threatening just the same. They were just as curious about us as we were about them and they swam around the raft over and over as they jumped up, just out of the water just like the dolphins you see on TV only a few feet from the raft. We were all very excited and having lots of fun taking pictures and enjoying their company. There must have been 5 or 10 of them cavorting in the water around us. Finally, we had to get going to our third snorkel destination. Again, very calm waters, interesting underwater terrain, but not as many fish this time in the deeper water. Although we were getting physically tired, the captain, again, did not set a time limit and let us enjoy ourselves as long as we wanted.

Finally, we started back across the channel between the islands. This time, we encountered spinner dolphins. The captain said that they were swimming, but in a "relaxed mode". There were 10 or 20 of them swimming and jumping up in the water, only a couple of them actually spinning as they did it. Again, very exciting to see.

Captain Patty and Owner Chad accommodated every request and made this a truly memorable experience. If you want an adventurous, but safe, experience that you will never forget, try Ocean Riders....you'll have a great time!