6 Days Exploring A Tropical Hawaiian Island

Today I'm flying to Maui for six days where I'll be exploring the remote areas of Hana, spearfishing deep sunken shipwrecks, and cooking up some killer grinds. So let's go check them out. All right here's my buddy. Yeah you here's the guy right here. Super nice neighbors. Oh my god look at your boat freaking setup. Yeah that's uh look at that spot up there. That's Daniel's property over here. This is where I'm going to be staying when I get back from Hana. Wow look at that two beds. Got a refrigerator. Oh how's this bad boy. The boat stall right here with the bamboo and everything. All right so the boat action is going to be happening in about three days when we get back from Hana. Brother Daniel is letting me borrow his car but it's a manual and I haven't drove manual in 10 years. We'll be good to go though. We're driving to Hana. It's just a slow cruise drive. It's like riding a bike right? All right we're off. First stop. Something we've been talking about this whole trip we're really excited to go to. They don't have this place on the big island. We made it. How much of a tourist you gotta be to be filming in Whole Foods huh? There's so much work involved in driving a stick. Compared to automatic. Holy sh... Paya town. Fill up your five gallon water jug instead of 50 water bottles. This is all the windsurfing zones right here. Let's go. I used to dive here all the time. This is whole Akiba beach. Super windy. Big surf. He only does this when he's nervous. I want to check out this spot up here. Let's go. Run run. I used to chill at this spot all the time back in the day. So there's over 700 winds and turns on the way to Hana. We're about 18 miles from Hana. But check out this spot. The water is blessing today. Looks pretty murky too. Stretch the legs a little bit. Damn been driving for a while. So fresh. Wow. Damn. It's gonna be our digs for the next couple of nights. Home sweet home. What do you think? So nice. I threw my weight belt in my check bag. Oh yeah. 11 pounds right there. We're tired. We're hungry. We're gonna go moe moe. Day one in the books. It's a beautiful day in Hawaii. And we're on day number two. And we're going to my favorite beach in the whole wide world. First stop some Hana coffee. Oh my gosh. Yeah, what'd you get? I took my mom on this hike about four years ago. But I haven't been back since. There's only a couple of red sand beaches in the whole world. And it gets red from the iron from the cinder cone. We got the whole beach to ourselves. I was thinking about trying to dive over here. But it's just way too gnarly and rough. So we gotta head back to the room. And I gotta try and catch us some dinner over there. Because we ain't got nothing to eat tonight. This is the main store in Hana. Huli huli chicken. Not bad view while you wait for your huli huli chicken. Oh, it's ready. It's ready. Thank you so much. This melts like butter. So good. Quick little peek. What a beautiful beach. But next spot. Super sick spot. How's that cave over there? Well, we don't have anything to eat for dinner tonight. So I'm going to put on my big boy pants. Aka my Evolve wetsuit. Grab my CT9. And I'm going to try my luck in there. And see if I can get us some fish. Pretty crazy. I can just walk right in the backyard. I might be able to just poke some fish right here. Nah, nah, nah. I gotta go check them out. Well, the water looks dirty, murky, and swelly. But let's go check them out. As soon as I jumped in, the current and swell got really strong. I just duck dived under a wave right here. And you can see it trying to push me back in. So I'm holding on to a rock with my left hand. Waiting for the wave to pass. And then it slingshots me straight out. It takes me a while. But I finally make it out of the murky waters. And check out this beautiful mountain right here. I just love diving along cool structures like this. As I'm swimming down to the depths. And when I get down to the bottom. We got these two nice size red menpaches. Some taupe. But I'm looking for something a bit bigger. I was thinking about taking one of these palanis. But it's my first drop. So I'm being a little bit more picky. I'm only going to take one fish. So I want it to be a nice one. Next drop. And I get surrounded by this school of nainai. So I just got to throw on the shaka. They're not on my hit list. So I swim to another spot. And take another drop. And when I get down to the bottom. Look at the top right corner. There's the guy. This is that special fish that I've been waiting for. The Moana Kali. I got a nice shot on him. So I start pulling him in. But as I go to grab him. He dodges my hand. And makes a run for it. Good thing I got the Evolve CTI 9. And if you want a three prong like mine. Go check out evolvediving.com. Use my promo code HAMA for 10% off your entire order. They got a bunch of amazing dive products. But I am so stoked right here. This is all that I needed. So I got him. Scale him. And now he's ready for some action. But first I gotta make this long swim back to shore. Just got out of the water. And I got my favorite fish for grind. Take a little stroll along the beach. I'm gonna cut up some ginger. Garlic. And stuff it into the sides. I'm gonna stuff the belly with sausage and onions. Throw some tinfoil on top. And bake it at 400 degrees. Smells super. Smells super good. It smells super good. We're stuffed and super tired. Time to moi moi and do it all over again. Day number three. And it's a beautiful sunrise. This drive is incredible. Wow. Oh you can feel the mana coming from it. Whoa. Make sure you look both ways. A couple miles in and the sweat's starting to pour. Gotta risk it for the biscuit. Oh my god. You're gonna eat that? Yeah. Oh my god. We haven't eaten in five days and seven nights. And we're getting desperate out here. We have arrived in the bamboo forest. You wanna be naughty? Go in there. Whoa. Beautiful little shishy spot. The sound from the bamboo forest just whistling in the wind is pretty incredible. Cute. Wow. If I thought I felt mana from the last spot, this spot is freaking next level. Oh yeah. See that? All right let's get out of here. Come on. No shopping if you stop. No shopping. We made it. It is the pouring now. Grab some snacks from your local Hana fruit stand. Look, one dollar. This is my favorite drive in the whole world. It's so amazing. So six years ago I built this shop with my boy Dusty. Man what a surprise. Have a good one. Oh that was cool to check out. Kaitlyn's gotta go home right now and go take care of Bubba. Bye. Dad I was leaving. Yeah. Take care Bubba. All right the girly part of the trip is completed. And now it's time to go kick it with the boys. But first I gotta go grab some chum for tomorrow. Got the chum and headed back to Daniel's. I am all dirty. I gotta jump in the shower. I'm tired. Long day. Long hikes and a lot of driving. Time to go moi moi and we're getting up at four in the morning. It's 4 a.m on day number four and let's go explore. Oh yes 4 a.m this guy's ready. Got a little bit of ice, a little bit of luck. We're about to hit it real good man. Captain Daniel. Yes sir. Where's the first spot? We're gonna go Molokini first thing this morning. Sunrise on the crater. Molokini. So the wind is picking up pretty bad. Way worse than we're expecting and it can get really sketchy out here. So unfortunately we're not going to be able to dive out here. We're going to head back in where it's a little bit safer. First drop of the day and we're at the Saint Anthony shipwreck. This used to be a shrimping boat from Louisiana. I decided to get a little nuts here and pop my head below deck and see if there's any monsters lurking in the shadows. Thankfully no more nothing to bite my head off. So I start making my way towards the window. It looks like the coast is clear and my body can fit. So I decided to send it through and I noticed a toilet on the left. But good thing I don't got to use the bathroom right now. At this moment I'm realizing that I'm the captain of this ship. And first order of business is to swim through this window and find me a fish to eat. Check out the ocean floor. It's a tire graveyard. This is an artificial reef that they made out of tires and concrete. It's pretty lively down here. So I get myself settled in and this magical moo comes to chuck me out. First spot was a fun little successful trip. All right so where's the next spot? Man I can't tell you this is Maui man. I can't tell you nothing. Now we're out in the depths doing some big boy diving. As I get close to the bottom I noticed this big school of bear jacks swimming around this tiny patch of reef. From the surface I could barely see the reef but I knew I wanted to land on top of it. So I had to fight strong current while I breathed up which made this dive pretty uncomfortable. And when I get down to the bottom there's a lot going on down here. One thing I didn't notice till now is look at the size of this eel. This is right where I'm sticking my left hand. Thankfully he lets me keep all my fingers but right now I'm just oblivious that there's a monster beside me. I'm just looking up at the jacks trying to bring one in but they don't seem too curious in me. So I decide to swim up and after him try to close the distance a little bit and see what happens. I got these two coming in hot so I'm lining up for a shot. But then he makes a quick turn and starts swimming away. That drop I just took was 114 feet of pure uncomfortableness. So instead of swimming and fighting current we decide to get tugged by the boat and go back to the same spot. This time I got a nicer breath up and when I get down to the bottom I'm feeling a bit more relaxed. The only downfall is that I totally missed the reef and there's nothing but sand. So I'm just chilling waiting for an uku to show up. Any time now and just like clockwork there he is. I can tell he's pretty skittish though he's keeping his distance. This was the closest he came to me so I just shoot him up for air. The wind is arriving so it's our last spot. We decided to go back to the artificial reef. A little bit different zone a bunch of concrete blocks here. Big school of Vecchia and when I get down to the bottom there's this collar right here. I was telling him he's about to get bentos. And look this pussy right here starts charging me trying to protect the collar. Sometimes you just gotta let them know that you ain't messing around. Next drop and I get surrounded by the school of Vecchia. I take a peek to my right and I see a nice big school of Mu. But once again I can tell they're pretty skittish and they're keeping their distance. A couple of nice Papillos swim by but then I put my focus back on the Mu. I can tell they're not going to make it easy so I take one quick peek to the left see if there's anything closer. And I decide to do a full sendy and swim after this guy. It's a big one. All right 73. We can choose whichever side we want. We got some cool drops got some good fish and now and now food food food and water. We haven't eaten all day we're starving. Turkey bacon avocado. Thank you. Oh man I'm a dirty boy. I gotta shower. Oh that outdoor shower feels so good. But check out my digs right here. Got my bed with that view. The sun is going down and Daniel wants to get up at 3 30 tomorrow morning. So it's time to go moi moi. Day number five 3 30 in the morning. Let's go. I got a special gift for Daniel. Yes my brother. Today we're going to be a little naughty and head over to Lanai for the day. How's the conditions today? No we're looking good for the wind. There's only 3 000 people that live on Lanai. All right first spot of the day. Let's go check them out. As soon as we jumped in there's this big cuckoo just cruising in the shallows. But then Daniel spots this secret tunnel so he takes a drop to investigate. As he's swimming towards the end he notices a beautiful conch shell just chilling on the bottom. Our mission right now is to find some taco and it's not to eat. It's going to serve a much greater purpose than feeding our bellies. Daniel grabs a nice one here and it sucks hold of his chest. One of his tentacles grabs his snorkel and rips it from his mask. I can tell he needs a hand here so I grab his gun. The taco knows that Daniel can't breathe without his snorkel. So he throws it down to the depths but unfortunately the mission was completed. And the mission was to get our driver Megan a taco to play with. She doesn't spearfish so she was just going to be stuck on the boat all day driving us around. And she loves to play with tacos so we had to find her one. Now that our driver is happy it's time to do some big boy dives. There was this pesky shark bothering our flasher so I swim down to show him I ain't playing around. I continue sinking and I'm down here at 90 feet and a nice school of kamanus comes charging in. I'm trying to line up on this one but it keeps juking me. I notice a bigger school towards my right. So I'm just waiting patiently as I'm sinking down deeper and deeper. This one's coming in for a shot but it's just moving too fast. And then I finally spot my opportunity. I started hunting the kamanus at 90 feet and ended up shooting this guy at 111. Sashimi tonight! I get down to the bottom here at 124 feet. There's a big kaku above my right shoulder and there's some ukus right in front of me. The pilanis are creating a wall blocking the ukus from me. But thankfully the pilanis start swimming to the right and the ukus can get around. And one of them decides to come chuck me out. And I hit him too high and I missed my opportunity. There's a lot of ukus down there. I hit one but it ripped off. Next drop and I land on a beautiful school of moana collies. And when I get down to the bottom I'm realizing this is a lot deeper than I thought. I just watched Daniel take a drop here and he made it look pretty shallow. I remember being mesmerized in this moment by all the beauty swimming around me. This was a really cool spot to land. It's kind of like an enchanted underwater forest. The big boy that I want on the left there, I don't know what he's doing. He's just kind of swimming into the rock. And I don't want to shoot my gun straight into the rock. So I'm starting to back up to give him a little bit of space. Quick flash of the watch and I'll stalk through there. Got my favorite fish full grind. Moana collie. Bro I thought that drop was only like 60 feet where you went. No it wasn't. Good call captain. Today we're just diving all kind random spots. Exploring some new zones. This spot had some fat opelucalas. So Daniel makes quick work and pokes a couple to take home. A couple of spinners. There's a shipwreck over here. Oh we're running late. We gotta go. We got some fish to fillet but that's gonna be tomorrow because we're starving. We're gonna go grab some pizza right now. Well it's about that time again. Time to muay muay. Day number six and it's the final countdown. Iao Valley. Let's go check them out. In 1790 King Kamehameha took over the Maui forces and he was the first mo'i king of the Hawaiian islands. This is the iao needle. During the battle the warriors would use it as a lookout. Pretty powerful stuff. I gotta go pick up some ingredients for the fish today. Brother Daniel was kind enough to let me use his car so let's go clean them up for him. I'll go with the glaze, the custard filled. The krispy kreme donut? Yes. Try not to eat sugar. Oh really? I'm on vacay over here. We don't got krispy kreme on the big island. Could do other stuff but I feel like this is probably plenty. Daniel's gonna make a quick phone call but there's a cool river up here that I'm gonna go check out. I've been trying to find the right time to give Daniel my gift. My most prized possession. But I think I'm gonna do it right now before the cookout. You guys see something brother? Yeah. Holy ----. Walked up on a magnus. Hell yeah. It's the CT9. The CT9 bro. My most prized possession right there. Yeah I got a couple tips. A nice little knife right here. And a new belt that they're coming out with. Yo appreciate that man. All right so we're gonna start cooking. What do we need first? We got just about everything we need. We are gonna do the mac nut crusted moo. So if you could grab some mac nuts. I need like 10 to 12 mac nuts. Well it's a good thing we're cooking under a mac nut tree. There you go. Chef Daniel look at this presentation right here. Give it a little sample. That's bomb. Pan-crusted mac nut moo. Wow. Fresh kamanu with some unagi and wasabi. It just melts in your mouth like butter. So Daniel is an amazing freediving and spearfishing instructor here on Maui. So you can reach me at lionsdenfreediving on Instagram. Man I wish I could stay longer and dive with you. But if you ever come to Big Island. I got a really nice boat bro called the Hamma Jang 3000. Home sweet home. Mahalo so much for watching. And most importantly. Mahalo aina.