Tunnels Makua Beach

The post-card scenery of Tunnels Beach offers a wide crescent shaped golden sand beach, shady ironwood trees and views of the Bali Hai and lush jungle mountains. This beach boasts a grove of ironwood trees providing comfortable shade for your visit, golden, soft sand and spectacular views at the edge of the Na Pali coast. Also, while a popular spot with both tourists and locals, the beach is not overly crowded and you can always find a spot distanced from other beach goers. The sunsets are also spectacular.

The center portion of beach has a huge is a half moon shape with a large reef about 1/8 mile off shore. This reef provides for excellent snorkeling and diving and creates a barrier from the rough surf conditions and strong currents characteristic of the North Shore. The shallow, sandy bottom in front of the reef remains calm even in the rough winter months and the waves breaking beyond the reef makes for an an excellent surfing spot.

Diving
Tunnels is renowned as not only one of the best dive spots in Hawaii, but also as one of the premier dive sites in the world. Composed of an inner and outer reef with a wide channel in between, Tunnels is a maze of coral formations, lave tubes, tunnels and arches and is home to thousands of different species of marine life. Divers tend to favor the outer reef, which offers more lava tubes and arches.

Snorkeling
If you aren’t scuba certified, you can still check out some of the amazing coral and marine life at this beach. While you may not get to explore some of the underwater tunnels without a tank on, you’ll still be able to take in the underwater beauty of this reef.

Enter the water at the sandy spot on the northern part of the reef. The wide sand beach offers the easiest entrance into the water. Don’t attempt to enter the shallow areas where there are rocks and reef that come all the way up to the beach edge. Large and small Lava tubes form the many underwater caverns give Tunnels it’s name as well as a magical underwater world to explore.

Inner Reef
If you’re a beginner at snorkeling, then you should stay close to shore and follow the inner reef. The inner reef may not be as fun as the outer reef, but it does have lots of caverns, channels and tunnels.

Outer Reef
Only experienced snorkelers should swim to the outer reef and even that depends on the water conditions. The outer reef is by far the most interesting. In some places it has a steep drop-off of about 50-70 feet with an abundance of sea life.  Past the outer reef the surf kicks up, making Tunnels popular with both surfers and kite boarders.

Facilities: Nearby Haena State Park has restrooms and showers is within walking distance