Snorkels and Sea-Life

Breakfast has become pretty much routine at this point. I continued to enjoy the breakfast buffet – courtesy of passing up on room cleanings – while Archer explored the menu further. Today she had a Kalua Pork Eggs Benedict. At first, this seemed like the best dish so far. It tasted great and the serving size seemed perfect. Unfortunately, the longer she ate the more the flavors seemed to disappear into each other. By the end of the meal, the verdict was that yesterday’s Chorizador was still the best.

Immediately following breakfast was an interlude of disappointment. We swung passed the concierge desk and grabbed some pamphlets for local kayaking excursions. The brochures didn’t offer quite what we’d been looking for, but we knew there was a group locally in Hanalei that looked promising. They offered exactly what we wanted – mostly river kayaking but with some time in more open water. This group additionally offered some snorkeling time and lunch. Unfortunately, we’d missed the timing to do this today, and when we called to make a reservation, they were booked through the rest of our trip. This led to a bit of feeling defeated, but soon we decided it would be a good day to head out and do some of the snorkeling we’d been excited about.

When we rented our snorkel gear, we were also given recommendations for which local beaches offered the best options. As it turns out, two of the four were parts of the beach we’d randomly driven to a few days back which I called Haena Beach. The particular part we were looking for was called Tunnels Beach. Already familiar with the drive, we headed out along the coast to have our swim. Along the way, we drove through Hanalei and were excited to see some additional kayak rental options. A tandem kayak for the day was entirely reasonable, so that outing might still be in our future. We then continued down the road, as we’d done previously – across narrow one-lane bridges, along steep but short rock cliffs, all watching the tides crash against the shore. Still a lovely drive, about 30 minutes.

We looked for a little while for earlier parking options than the tiny lot at the entrance to Haena Beaches. Unfortunately, we could not find any, but a few fully packed side streets. So, we looped into the tiny parking lot and frankly waited until another car left. Despite the lot being small and very popular, the car turnover seems to move quickly, so our wait was not too frustratingly long. We grabbed a spot, grabbed our gear and headed out onto the beach. The entrance to the beach was in a cove, and we set out along the eastern side towards the point (we initially thought Tunnels was on the other side of it). After a bit of walking along the beach we decided we’d take a break and see what there was to see in the water.

The underwater area here was mostly shallow sand and volcanic rock. Swimming out was easy, as the waves were gentle, and the tide wasn’t strong. While I wouldn’t say the fish were “abundant,” they were certainly not rare. Many that we saw I do not hope to identify, but after looking them up later, here are some that I am certain that we saw: Humuhumunukunukapua’a, RaccoonButterflyfish, Saddleback Wrasse, Trumpetfish, Picasso Trigerfish, Unicornfish, and others I’m certain. For fish on this swim, the Humuhumunukunukuapua’a was for me the most exciting. Knowing it is the state fish, and the name of a restaurant where we ate, it was exciting to see them. But, most excitingly for this swim was on our return to the beach as we swam upon another Hawaiian GreenSea Turtle! This one was alone, diving for food among the volcanic rock. There was one spot is especially liked, which led to it being frequently vertical, with its head in the rocks and tail just breaking the surface. The pose was a bit silly and reminiscent of foxes hunting in the snow. We enjoyed watching the turtle for quite some time before heading back to the beach.

On the beach, we collected our things and continued up the coast. It wasn’t long before an unexpected highlight came into view. Just ahead was (as with our first sea turtle sighting) a rock on the beach… or was it. We didn’t consider it could be anything else until we were nearly upon it and realized that it was a Hawaiian Monk Seal, another local yet endangered animal. It was quite large, we assume full grown, just lounging on the sand. Every so often it would roll over to bake a different part of its body in the sand and 

sun. We once watched it spin around so its face would be clipped by the encroaching waves, but enjoyed seeing the apparent pleasure on its face and the twitch of its whiskers. “This sight” continued to improve as we walked along the beach and caught a glimpse of another seal just off shore and in the shallows. This one was finding its own place to beach and sun-bask. Before long it slid up onto shore and did the “land-wiggle” to get out of the waves. This one looked younger and seemed more energetic – but that could just have been that it was getting into sleepy-time position. Interestingly, this one had some form of transition device between its shoulders and we were worried would have a more difficult time rolling over. I assure you, that was not an issue. The two seals were a complete surprise and an absolute wildlife highlight of the trip!

After the seals we finished trekking around the point of the beach and the wind picked up so strongly here! We went a bit further and tried two different spots to enter the water. It looked like there was shallow coral all around, but the current, waves, and wind were crazy strong. As soon as we got into the water it was pushing us back down the coast and when we tried to swim against the wind – just to see – we could barely make progress. After our second try we gave up and headed back to the more sheltered beaches of the cove. Fortunately, in retrospect with some maps, we believe that “Tunnels” was in fact within this cove and where we were about to swim.

So, back in the relative calm of the cove we re-equipped and submerged into the water. This snorkeling was terrific! Most of the fish we saw were the same as before,

but more, and more densely swimming. We’d barely been in the water when a pair of Picasso Triggerfish came and perhaps even played with us. They swam right up to our faces and around our legs. At one point they even contacted my flippers. It was perhaps the cutest behavior I’ve ever seen from fish. We continued swimming and this section had live coral, which was refreshing to see. And then we hit the ridge, a bit of an underwater cliff that we swam along for a while. The variety of fish and sizes exceeded anything we’d seen yet and the sheer diversity was awesome. After some time, we looped around to head back and found ourselves literally surrounded by a school of Needlefish. These little silver fish, long and slender, hovered just below the surface of the water and at first, we weren’t even certain they were there. They blended into the ripples and light from the surface, but once we knew what to look for, they were everywhere! It was cool and overall - we ranked the day’s snorkeling as an 8-9 out of 10… on our arbitrary scaling system.

Now hot and tired, we made the long walk back to the car. The seals were still hanging out on the beach (and were still cool to see) and we headed back to Hanalei. In town,

we stopped at a little strip-mall-like-market to look around and have a snack. We went to JoJo’s Shave Ice, shave ice being one of the Hawaiian local treats. It sounds at first like a snow cone, but it is a way better texture and certainly more refreshing. Here, they piled the shaved ice (yes, it is literally a giant ice cube that is mechanically shaved) onto macadamia nut ice cream, and then poured in the liquid flavors. Personally, I still feel ice cream is superior, but this wasn’t bad, and Archer enjoyed it. Splitting one was perfect. We then walked around the shops in the market and then headed back to the hotel.

Late in the afternoon, we thought it was a great time for a snack. Earlier in the week we’d purchased a Soursop fruit and were excited to give it a try. Unfortunately, after cutting into it, we are nearly certain that it was not ripe and had basically no taste. It was disappointing.

But we wouldn’t let that sour (hehehe) our day so we headed out to the pools. We’d not yet been to the infinity pool so there we headed, and it was lovely. We greatly enjoyed relaxing in the cool water while looking out over the ocean. At this point, weather on the island was seeming like it was going to turn. Clouds were looking ominous over the mountains and we could see spits of rain clouds out at sea. Yet, we were unscathed in the pool and at the hotel. Finally, it was time to head back to the room for dinner.

Once more we assembled tacos. I headed out to a grill to prepare the tortillas, some fresh pineapple slices, and green onions as Archer set things up inside. We regrouped for another night of tasty tacos as we sat on our back “porch” and watched the weather. The sun was setting, though we did not actually have a view of the horizon, but we continued to admire the rolling clouds, seemingly consuming the mountains and hills in the distance. The sun played orange and purple off the backs of them as it fell behind the hidden horizon. It was all cool and lovely, and was another great end to another successful day.