DOLPHIN, Sea-TURTLE & SEA-CAVES westside ADVENTURE
see pricing chart for total costs
The Dolphin, Sea-Turtle, Sea-Cave Adventure is an unforgettable experience on the Westside of Oahu and an adventure you don’t want to miss during your stay on Oahu.
Check out this 60-Second Godspeed Adventures Dolphin, Sea Turtle & Sea-Cave Information video!
Hawaii and Oahu in particular has so much to offer when it comes to adventure, sightseeing and wildlife. In particular, our Wild Spinner Dolphins and the Hawaiian Green-Sea-Turtles. We begin with our travels along the scenic west coast in search of Spinner Dolphins. Few people have the opportunity to see these spectacular Dolphins with their aerial displays of "spinning" up to 6 full rotations above the waterline. Passively observing Spinner Dolphins while in the water is one of our goals. We follow guidelines that are dictated by Federal Law protecting these animals. We will make sure you observe these animals under an eco friendly leadership giving you a safe, open ocean safari you will remember forever. We will also snorkel at sites with Hawaiian Green Sea-Turtles, an array of tropical fish, Spotted Rays, and perhaps we may even spot a Hawaiian Monk Seal.
When it comes to the Wild Spinner Dolphins, like any wildlife creatures, it's hard to guarantee sightings; let alone actually snorkeling/swimming with them. The Dolphin portion of our tour is only a small segment of our day together How long depends on the time it takes to locate them and actually get to their location in the ocean. Sometimes we have to try several times and locations, so it can take anywhere from 90-minutes up to 3-hours or more. Then there are times that it makes more sense to stop trying if the Dolphins don't want to play with us that day and move onto all of our other epic adventures. Let me give you some more detailed information on these beautiful creatures and how this is done...
The Wild Spinner Dolphins usually come close to the shoreline early mornings on the Westside of Oahu in pods ranging from 12 to maybe 100 dolphins in all. They are coming there to rest, relax, play, mate and actually sleep in the mornings. They are nocturnal creatures, feeding at night way out in much deeper waters before they come into shallow waters in the mornings. They can come into one of 7 bays on the Westside, they look for shallow waters with mostly sand at the bottom, not the reef so that they can get better light refraction to the surface for better visibility. They shut down their sonar and one half hemisphere of their brains allowing it to sleep for approximately 10-minutes before switching sides of their brains, allowing the other side to sleep for 10-minutes. This can repeat anywhere between 2-6 hours as they traverse in a pattern created and led by the leader of the pod. They "partner up" with one other dolphin in the pod and both have their inside eyes shut (ones facing each other) with their outside eyes open; keeping watch for each other. When they switch sides, they switch positions.
We have excellent luck locating the Spinner Dolphins about 85-90% of the time, so it cannot be guaranteed 100%. Once we locate them we determine their swimming pattern and do our best to place you/us in the water way before the Dolphins come back to that location. The idea is to estimate where they will go next, allowing them to "choose" whether or not to continue that pattern and come bless us with their presence. In other words, "IT'S ENTIRELY UP TO THEM" if they want to play and swim with us. If we are lucky (and we usually are) we stay still, snorkeling with these beautiful creatures in a safe, non-intrusive manner. Many people start chasing them (it's actually illegal and very sad). There are some Dolphin Boat tour companies that really don't give these Dolphins the respect they deserve and will chase them down with boats and drop up to 100 people in the water at the same time which all causes much stress to the Dolphins, making them very anxious and in order to protect their babies and themselves they will all take off in order to find a location where they feel safe and people are respectful. We find that by respecting these Dolphins, they reward us with their presence for quite some time... and THAT IS AMAZING!
NOTE: Please understand that we cannot guarantee sightings and encounters with the Spinner Dolphins since they are wild creatures and the ocean is very big. We do have excellent luck but in the event we do not find them we still have many more adventures and things to do during our 12-hours together. So please be patient and understanding in the event we don't find them and need to move onward with our day. Mahalo for your understanding and patience!
We take our adventure tour experiences VERY seriously... Our number one goal is to make sure the day we spend together is by far the most memorable and epic of all! Our all-day adventure tours are ALL-INCLUSIVE, and we see/do/explore more in one day than most will in an entire week! Remember, we are VERY GOOD at what we do and nobody on this island does what we do the way we do it. There is a reason that EVERY SINGLE review on TripAdvisor, Google, Yelp and Facebook about Godspeed Adventures is 5-STARS! We do NO advertising or marketing and rely solely on repeat business, referrals from our happy customers and people that just seem to find us somewhere online.
