THE mother and her baby were curious about the strange tubular creature they saw gliding underwater off the coast of Lahaina. They swam to within 20 feet of it — so close Jim Walsh could see their dark oval eyes.
"Of course, following the law, I held our position as soon as I saw the humpback whales," said Walsh, who was piloting Atlantis Adventures’ submarine that February morning in 1996. "They checked us out for less than a minute, then continued on their way. That still gives me chicken skin when I think about it. You never forget encounters like that, no matter how brief they are or how long ago they happened."
ATLANTIS SUBMARINES MAUI
» Meet at: Check in at the Atlantis Submarine retail store in Pioneer Inn, 658 Wharf St., near the harbor, Lahaina, Maui
» Tours depart: Daily, on the hour from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Check in 30 minutes prior to departure.
» Cost: $109 per adult and $45 per child (must be at least 36 inches tall, and the rate applies to kids through age 12). Kamaaina rates are $39 and $15, respectively.
» Phone: 667-2224 on Maui or 800-548-6262 from the other islands
» Email: mres@atlantisadventures.com
» Website: www.atlantisadventures.com
» Notes: The tour lasts one hour, 50 minutes, including 45 minutes underwater. Participants enter and exit the submarine on a nearly vertical, 11-step ladder, so wearing pants and walking shoes is recommended.
Round-trip transportation is available only for the 9 a.m. tour for an additional $25 per person from hotels in West Maui and $40 per person from hotels in South Maui.
A submarine tour can be combined with a luau, snorkel cruise, $25 gift certificate from the Hard Rock Cafe or, from mid-December through mid-April, a whale-watching cruise. Call for details.
The Maui Value Pass includes admission to four attractions — Atlantis Submarines, Maui Ocean Center, Maui Tropical Plantation and the Bailey House Museum — for $124 for adults and $59 for children. Call or go online to purchase the pass.
Atlantis Adventures also offers daily submarine tours year-round off Waikiki Beach and Kailua-Kona.
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Today, Walsh is general manager of Atlantis Submarines Maui, overseeing an activity that draws 80,000 visitors annually. His fascination with the beauty and mysteries of the undersea world began decades ago, when he was a boy watching Jacques Cousteau documentaries on television.
"Our tours remind me of Cousteau’s expeditions in that when the hatches close and the sub dives, you never know what amazing things you’ll see," Walsh said. "There are no fences down there, so there’s no way to predict what will swim by; the ‘scenery’ is never exactly the same. In the 25 years I’ve worked for Atlantis Adventures, I’ve probably gone down in our subs a thousand times as a pilot and as a passenger, and I never get tired of it. It’s like asking a photographer if he gets tired of shooting sunsets and rainbows. How can you get tired of something so awesome?"
The adventure begins at Lahaina Harbor where guests board the shuttle boat Holokai for a 10-minute ride to the dive site. The views encompass the West Maui mountains, Lanai, Molokai, Kahoolawe and, on a clear day, Hawaii island.
At the dive site, guests step from the Holokai into the 65-foot, 48-passenger submarine, which has large viewing portholes and ample head and legroom. The sub is battery-powered, so it emits no pollutants. Slowly and silently — a wondrous sea creature itself — it descends 130 feet into the deep blue of the Pacific.
Designed for observation, not for speed, the sub travels just 3 miles per hour. During its leisurely underwater journey, puffer fish, trumpetfish, cleaner wrasses, yellow tangs, bluestripe snappers, longnose butterflyfish, milletseed butterflyfish, raccoon butterflyfish and Moorish idols often cruise by the portholes. The best time of year to spot whales is January through March.
The sub circles over two large natural reefs, but the highlight of the tour for most passengers is an artificial reef that Atlantis Adventures created by sinking the Brig Carthaginian 61⁄2 years ago (see sidebar). Now covered with rust, barnacles and clusters of coral, the ghostly hulk of the 97-foot steel-hulled vessel rests on the ocean’s sandy floor a half-mile off Maui’s west coast.
Atlantis Adventures financed the $300,000 project. "We realized the importance of it," Walsh said. "Our natural reefs are under a lot of pressure. As a community, we need to ensure that our marine life not only survives, but thrives. Artificial reefs are a way to bring relief to our natural reefs and provide new habitats for marine animals to grow and mature."
In addition to enhancing the submarine tour experience, the artificial reef has become a popular attraction for divers and has created research opportunities for marine biology students attending the University of Hawaii Maui College. It was one of the factors that enabled Atlantis Adventures to earn the highest designation when the Hawaii Ecotourism Association recognized the company as a certified ecotour operator last year.
"Our tour is the only one of its kind on Maui," Walsh said. "It’s safe, fun, exciting, educational and eco-friendly. Riding in a submarine is something both adults and kids enjoy. It immerses them in the spectacular undersea world without having to get wet."
Cheryl Chee Tsutsumi is a Honolulu-based freelance writer whose travel features for the Star-Advertiser have won several Society of American Travel Writers awards.
TSUTSUMI WINS TRAVEL WRITERS PRIZE
Cheryl Chee Tsutsumi has won a second-place Silver Award from the Society of American Travel Writers-Western Chapter for a group of columns published last year in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.
"It’s hard to imagine there’s anything new a travel writer could say about Hawaii. But this author clearly knows the beat, providing fresh personality features on a place that has seen saturation coverage for more than a century," the contest judges said. The writer finds "new ways to describe the beauty and drama of the scenery," they noted.
The prize was based on three 2011 columns:
» "Let’s Rock," on rock-climbing excursions, July 24.
» "What a Dive!" describing shipwreck diving tours, Nov. 20.
» "Festival keeps Auntie Josie’s memory alive," on an annual Christmas festival that uses decorations handmade by the late Josie Chansky of Kapaa, Nov. 27.
Judges gave the first-place Gold prize in the column category to Spud Hilton of the San Francisco Chronicle, and the third-place Bronze to Judith Fein of The Huffington Post.
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A TALE OF 2 CARTHAGINIANS
In 1967 the Lahaina Restoration Foundation (www.lahainarestoration.org) purchased the Carthaginian to help fulfill its mission of restoring and preserving the historical and cultural legacies of the seaside town of Lahaina in West Maui. The wooden vessel, a replica of a
19th-century whaling ship, appeared in the 1966 movie "Hawaii," based on James Michener’s best-selling novel.
The Carthaginian was anchored at Lahaina Harbor for five years as a whaling museum. In 1972, as it was being sailed to Oahu for repairs, it hit a reef at the entrance to the harbor and broke apart.
To replace it, the foundation bought a freight carrier the following year that had been built in Germany in 1920. "Carthaginian" was painted on its hull; the vessel became known as the Brig Carthaginian to distinguish it from its predecessor.
The Brig Carthaginian was berthed at Lahaina Harbor as a whaling museum for 30 years. As time passed, its maintenance costs kept increasing, eventually costing $50,000 a year to keep it afloat. In 2003, marine engineers conducted a feasibility study. Their conclusion: It would not be cost-effective for LRF to restore it.
Instead of scuttling the Brig Carthaginian at sea, LRF approached Atlantis Adventures about acquiring it for use as an artificial reef. On July 22, 2003, Atlantis Adventures bought the vessel for $1, which set the wheels in motion for one of Maui’s most significant conservation projects to date.
After 21/2 years of preparation, Atlantis Adventures sank the Brig Carthaginian off West Maui on Dec. 13, 2005, creating a habitat that now attracts an abundance of marine life.
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