Do you scuba?

My dad got certified as a scuba diver in the 1970s — I’m not sure how he kept the water out of his mask with the insane sideburns and mustache he was rocking at the time — but he always wanted my brother and I to get certified. It took several false starts (I went through the entire certification course in college but couldn’t do the open-water dive because of sorority initiation), but Toby and I finally got for-real certified just before we got married. Then we did several awesome dives in St. Lucia on our honeymoon… and that was it.

We have lived near the ocean ever since, and have gone snorkeling a few times on vacations, but we realized when we were planning our Hawaii trip that we hadn’t been scuba diving since 2007.

Of course, the Hawaiian Islands are fantastic for snorkeling and scuba diving, and we managed to do three dives during our time on Maui. It’s hard to pick a favorite, but we definitely saw more cool sea life during our third dive, at Mala Pier in Lahaina.

The location is a fishing pier that collapsed in a hurricane in the early 90s, and has since turned into an artificial reef. It’s now home to tons of coral, fish, and SEA TURTLES.

I love sea turtles so much. They are seriously the coolest. In these photos, Toby and I are saying “Duuuuuude,” in underwater hand signals.

We also saw some white-tip sharks, which are really beautiful and not as scary as you might think, since they are relatively small and very skittish.

Our guide, Jose, was taking these photos and tried to get up close to the various sharks we saw — but as soon as they saw us, they swam away. This one only let him get close because it was missing an eye, so it couldn’t see him coming.

Gorgeous, right? There were also eels, but I despise eels, so I am not including any photos of them. Sorry, not sorry.

In addition to the amazing sea life, we also liked that we were able to just walk right into the water from shore; no long, rocky boat rides required. Plus, it was just Toby and I diving with Jose (who had done our refresher course at the hotel), so we weren’t trying to swim around a bunch of other people.

And also, turtles.

The water was warm, and we probably could have done it without wetsuits at all, but the shorty wetsuits were good to protect us a bit from the coral and the straps and stuff on the vests. I put a ton of cheap conditioner in my hair ahead of time to avoid the gnarly hair knot I usually get from the mask and snorkel, and it did help a bit. Not having a snorkel also helped tremendously, I think.

After the dive trip we took to Lanai (where we did the first two dives), we weren’t sure if we needed to do another dive, but I’m really glad we did this one. If you’re ever in the area, and you’re scuba certified, I would definitely recommend getting a guide (we really liked Jose from Five Star Scuba) or even just renting some gear and tanks and checking out Mala Pier. You won’t be disappointed.

And for brunch after? You can sit on the porch at Mala Ocean Tavern and watch the sea turtles pop their heads up out of the water while you eat delicious food and drink a cocktail (or a coconut water with a splash of pineapple juice, which is what I had). They don’t even mind if you’re wearing board shorts, a not-quite-dry rash guard and a neon hat to cover the aforementioned hair knot. I love Maui!!

All underwater photos by Jose Silva of Five Star Scuba.