December 10, 2018

The Wild Fish Pond (aka The Hawaiian Islands)

Snorkeling in Kauai was like getting dropped into a saltwater aquarium.

All Photos in this Post Taken by Z-Tourz

I just recently went to Kauai and would like to talk about my Kauai trip while it is fresh in my mind. Snorkeling was a major part of this vacation. The only day that I wasn’t in the water was the first day (although I was in the pool that day, which had a waterslide… it was so fun #bestpoolever). Anyway, back to snorkeling now.

As Moorish Idols gracefully glide along the rocks searching for algae and Humuhumunukunukuāpuaʻa cruise about, the world seems to slow down. Humuhumunukunukuāpuaʻa (aka Picasso Triggerfish) means this in Hawaiian: humuhumu means to put things together (referring to its nest building habits), nukunukuāpuaʻa means nose like a pig (oink oink). We usually snorkeled on Poipu Beach, which hosted a wide biodiversity of fish. While we were on Poipu Beach, before we snorkeled, we saw a… Monk Seal! Once we were in the water, we saw tons of fish. These are just examples: a three foot long Trumpetfish, a smaller but more beautiful yellow Trumpetfish (which I thought looked like a swimming banana), a Spotted Hawkfish, two Snowflake Moray Eels (which were about the size of my thumb at their widest when they opened their mouths), huge schools of Sergeant Major fish, Giant Trevally (which are known to headbutt sharks and can jump out of the water to eat terns, a surprising reversal of the food chain since birds usually eat fish, not the other way around),Humuhumunukunukuāpuaʻa, Moorish Idols, Christmas Wrasse, Saddleback Wrasse, Orangeband Surgeonfish, Hawaiian Whitespotted Toby, Orange Spined Unicornfish, Needlefish, and Raccoon Butterflyfish. Whenever I saw a Raccoon Butterflyfish, I scared it away on purpose because they eat Sergeant Major eggs and the Sergeant Major fish are so timid that the Raccoon Butterflyfish will take advantage of this and eat their eggs. I recommend snorkeling at Poipu Beach (on the right side) and Lawa’i Beach behind the Beach House restaurant, which I also recommend (get dessert and you’ll thank me later).

Another snorkeling experience that we did was Z-Tourz. The first spot that they took us to on their rigid-hulled raft (which is very fast and generates a lot of sea spray… so sit on the right side when going out and the left when coming back) was a crushed lava tube area that turtles absolutely loved. The turtles slept in the condensed tubes and came up when they needed air. We saw eight turtles while snorkeling at this spot alone. The largest of these turtles had shells as long as small boogie boards and were as graceful as underwater angels. The snorkeling guide said that these turtles can be over 200 pounds when fully grown. I could get pretty close to them (about three feet), but they were protected under Hawaii’s laws so I couldn’t go any closer. The next spot that we went to was more of a coral reef. It was about 20 feet deep instead of the 40 feet deep near the turtles. There were more fish at this spot, but I still saw two or three more turtles. The current was really strong here and we got dragged very far from the boat. Swimming back to the boat against the current was like trying to row a boat on land.

Here are pictures of me snorkeling with the turtles (I am the one in the green shirt, with the blue mask, and blue fins) that were taken by our Z-Tourz guides (all of the pictures in this post were taken by Z-Tourz).