Swimming in Hawaii

Snorkelling is something that is NOT TO BE MISSED when holidaying in Hawaii! Can you imagine telling people you've gone to Hawaii but have not done any snorkelling? There are SOOOO many beaches along the Kona coast where the water is clear and corals attract schools of colourful fishes and sea turtles!!

We went snorkelling a total of 3 times - wish we could do MORE!! sigh..

First was at Kahalu'u Beach where a HUGE sea turtle actually flipped me on the calf! I thought it was a man with flippers and was very amused when I found out that it was a turtle. These creatures are HUGE!! Hold out your arms and make an oval and that's how big the turtles are. I imagine they must be hundreds of years old.

Plus they're fast too! With our bulky disposable underwater cameras, it was impossible to get a good shot of the turtles, so here you have the backside of one that didn't quite get away.

The water was very choppy here so both Mag and I had a bit of problem finding our footing. Thank goodness for our aqua shoes. Can't leave home without them! Got mine at Beach Road for $20.

It was very crowded and almost every spot on the sand was taken. Being Singaporeans, we chose one that was under shade. hehe.. We still got chao-tar/BURNT(!) but no reason for our bags to get toasted too, right!!

Views of the beach, pointing at a turtle's head, an anorexic girl and surfers nearby...


A few days later, we had another short stop for snorkelling at Two-Step (Place of Refuge). I still haven't figured out why it's called Two-Step. There were MORE fishes here and the water was clearer.



Mag took so long to acclimatise to the cold water. By the time she joined me, I had already finished using up our 1st (of 2) underwater camera :Þ

Here's Mag showing us the shaka sign which we found out later should be shown palm-in rather than palm-out.





FASHION POLICE ALERT! OMG... talk about mismatched colours! LOL..

Can you see the black lava we're standing on? It's like this all over this place/shore. In contrast, underwater there is a burst of colours! Corals and anemone flourish. Colourful fishes swim in to feast on the plankton.

In between snorkelling, we also visited some pretty interesting beaches. The MOST inaccessible must have been Green Sand Beach. It's near South Point but you have to park and walk for about 2 hours each way. Even if you had a 4WD, the terrain is still terrrrrrible and you would probably be knocked around alot in the car.


We had a scruffy little doggy companion who trotted along with us as we walked to Green Sand Beach. I'll post about him another day.

Now why did Mag want to change into her swimming costume here? We only had like 15mins to see the tiny tiny beach before we skooted off to our next destination...

A resting turtle on Black Sand Beach:



Hidden somewhere in Puna, there is Ahalanui Park - a beach park with a pond heated by volcanic steam. It was just lovely to soak in the warm water. Not sure how much bacteria is harbouring down there. Let's just hope we didn't stay there long enough for anything to take root! There was a family of tiny crabs living around the banks. How's that for hygiene? hehe...



After we found Over the Rainbow Falls geocache, we thought(!) we could take a dip in one of the still pools that looked soooo inviting. Yeah right! We didn't count on them being so freezing cold!!

Well, we did get our feet wet. Little fishes thought I was food!! And that's as far as I got - my hips! LOL...


Hapuna Beach

The WINNER of BEST BEACH on the Big Island has to go to Hapuna Beach!

This kind of beach makes you wanna just throw off your clothes in a pile, run on the soft white sand and throw yourself into the crashing waves.

The water is turquoise, clear, and very calm with just enough rolling waves to play in.




I must say, we saved the best (snorkelling) for last! The day we visited Captain Cook's Monument must have been one of the most memorable day of the holiday. We rented a kayak right at the waters (no need to transport on car roof) and we paddled across the bay to the monument. The guide books say that spinner dolphins sometimes appear and would swim with your kayak but we never saw any.

Here I am trying to imitate a Petroglyph figure. This is sort of a kayak-parking area. Everyone just docks here and drags their kayak up so that it doesn't get pulled back into the sea.

The monument reads, "In memory of the great circumnavigator, Captain James Cook, R.N., who discovered these islands on the 18th of January A.D 1778 and fell near this spot on the 14th of February A.D. 1779. This monument was erected in November A.D. 1874 by some of his fellow countrymen".

The water here is just amazingly clear!




Beyond the corals, looking out, all you can see is Deeep Blue Sea...


Someone told us you could break off one of these red tips from the sea urchin and write with them. Ha! Not gonna try that!!


Here's a shaka done the right way! ;-) and underwater, of course!