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Atlantis Submarine Tour Waikiki, Oahu

By , About.com Guide

4 of 6

Waikiki Dive Site

Sunken Airliner

Sunken Airliner as Seen from the Atlantis Submarine

Photo by John Fischer
Once we were all seated, the hatch was closed, the submarine was pressurized and the air-conditioning turned on. We soon began our quick trip to the dive site. The Waikiki dive site appears from the literature I've seen to be the most interesting of their Hawaii dive sites. The dive takes you past numerous coral formations, six concrete "pyramid" structures, four Japanese-designed artificial reefs, the remains of two sunken airliners and the remains of two shipwrecks, the U.S. Navy tanker ship Y0-257 and the Korean fishing boat, San Pedro.

The sunken airliners were disappointing in that little actually remains of these planes following Hurricane Iniki in 1992. The shipwrecks, however, are the real highlight of the trip. Not only did we get to see lots of colorful fish but also Hawaiian green sea turtles and even a shark swimming right past our view ports.

What you see out the view port is probably not exactly what you might expect. Colors at these depths of 80-110 feet are very distorted by the way the water effects the sunlight that filters down to that depth. Everything appears to be a shade of blue or green except some of the fish that pass right by the view port.

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