When deadly wildfires struck Lahaina in August 2023, Atlantis Submarines Maui lost almost everything. Many of its facilities — including its maintenance shop, offices and ticket booths — were destroyed. So were its underwater vessels and operational equipment. Now, nearly three years later, the company is returning to its home port in Lahaina Harbor.
Atlantis Submarines Maui had a soft reopening in February after obtaining state permission to use a passenger loading dock as the launch pad for its undersea tours. Since then, staff have been perfecting operations and preparing to accommodate a larger visitor base, according to Atlantis Submarines CEO Ronald Williams.
Tours are back in full swing as of last month. And while Lahaina Harbor is still under construction to address severe damages brought on by the fires, it is projected to resume normal operations by the end of the year.
“Lahaina Harbor is coming back,” Williams said. “It might not be coming back as fast as we would like it to come back, but it’s definitely coming back.”
Williams described the harbor as the “heart of Lahaina.” That’s why the reopening of Atlantis Submarines Maui is so important, he said. As the harbor slowly comes back to life, it creates opportunities for local jobs and experiences that were missing in the wake of the fires.
For Keolani Hill, the company’s reopening means she can finally return to the work that she’s most passionate about.
Born and raised in Lahaina, Hill had a background in marine conservation, diving and fishing when she began working at Atlantis Submarines Maui in 2021. As a naturalist and co-pilot, she spent her time educating visitors and sharing the history of Lahaina.
But when the fires hit and the company shut down its undersea tours on Maui, it was only a matter of time before Hill lost her job. After being transferred to the marketing department for about a year, she — along with the company’s 31 other employees — was furloughed.
“I was unemployed for probably six months, which was really difficult — trying to find a job, competing with all the survivors that lost their jobs as well,” she said.
Hill always planned on returning to the company. In February, she had the chance to.
For the past few months, she has been reconnecting with the crew she was forced to part with and training to be a submarine pilot. While the crew has had to make some operational adjustments, Hill said the tours are largely the same as they were before the fires.
The dive site is located south of Lahaina, in Puamana, where the conditions of the water, coral reefs and marine life closely resemble their pre-fire states, according to both Hill and Williams.
Although the nature of the tours hasn’t changed much, Williams said that the scale of the business has. Before the fires, tours were offered daily; now, they’re offered just five days a week.
“Lahaina was a destination for people, and now there’s no real destination,” he said. “We’re actually doing better than we had thought we would do, but we’re nowhere close to what Maui did pre-fire.”
Even so, he and Hill see Atlantis Submarines Maui’s reopening as a symbol of hope and opportunity.
“Atlantis coming back is a small sign of Lahaina’s resilience and growth,” Hill said. “We never forget what happened, and we always honor what happened, but I think it’s a great step in moving forward for our community.”
