Wild Side Specialty Tours

[Divetex]

We spent a thoroughly-enjoyable day with these folks a couple of weeks ago, and recommend them highly. We booked them for a "swim with wild dolphins" excursion, but as so often happens, the dolphins were out for dinner during our tour. The crew was absolutely professional. They stopped so we could swim with some very large green sea turtles, and I was able to get some nice photos of three of them. Although the dolphins didn't cooperate, we did see some humpback whales blowing from a distance, and I was able to catch a glimps of one's back. The bad part of this experience was watching two other boats chasing the whales. One of the idiots even radioed that they had gotten within 50 yards of the whale.....the law says that 100 yards is the minimum-allowed distance. Anyway, it's a shame that enforcement is lacking. Still, we had a great day afloat, and will do it again one day. Here's their URL:

 

http://sailhawaii.com/wildside.html

[beachgal]

Thanks! I was just looking between Wild Side and DolphinExcursions.com. For $95, Wild Side stays out for 4 hours, and the other is 2.5 hours. I think with Wild Side, only have 16 passengers on board, you would get a lot of time with the guides and a lot of info. Sorry you didn't get to swim around with the dolphins, but I'd love to swim around with the turtles, too, and would love to get photos of them and hope to see some whales. I'm leaving on March 5th, doing Pride of Aloha cruise first week, then staying in Oahu the second week.

 

Where did you drive from? We'll be staying in Kailua and have been told to allow 1.5 hours to drive to Waianae Harbor. How long did it take you? I'm hoping this is going to be awesome and will be worth getting up at 5:30AM on vacation!! Thanks for your info!

[spleen93]

1.5 hours from Kailua to Waianae Boat Harbor at 5:30 am should be more than adequate to get there considering that you'll be going against traffic flow. I'd probably say that you could do it in 1 hour but go with what they recommend. :)

 

If you want to swim with wild dolphins for free, head out to Makua Beach early in the AM - around 7 am or so. A pod of wild spinner dolphins usually comes in close to shore that time to rest and you'll usually get to watch their interactions fairly closely. Just be careful - that's the only place in Hawaii where I've had my car broken into. You may want to go and leave the windows rolled down so people looking for stuff can just look without damaging the car.

 

Spleen

[beachgal]

Spleen,

Thanks for the tip on where to swim with the dolphins for free! I've had several people warn us about cars being broken into. We'll have a rental, and I guess that's asking for trouble. We'll just take what we need with us and won't leave anything in the car!

[Divetex]

Spleen, thanks for answering her. I haven't visited the Hawaii board for a couple of weeks. BeachGal, we stayed at the Hale Koa, next door to the HHV on Waikiki Beach. It took us about an hour's leisurely drive to their boat ramp. BTW - We were the only people on the boat besides the crew.