Hawaii: Day Five

We woke up and decided we wanted to try snorkeling at Captain Cook’s Cove, as we had talked to several people in Hawaii who said it had amazing snorkeling.  What they didn’t tell us though, was that you had to boat about a mile to it.  So unfortunately that meant my mom and Karl were out (which I was sad about, because my mom was really looking forward to snorkeling, but Karl burns really easily in the sun and also isn’t interested in snorkeling, which is fine, but next time whoever goes with them better take Mom along snorkeling to a good place!).  We thought these zig zag lines were interesting. After quite a few wrong turns, we ended up making it to the spot where we discovered you needed to rent a kayak to get to the monument.  So we split up and Dillon and I decided to kayak there.  Karl was nice and we traded cameras so my camera wouldn’t risk getting ruined.  While looking into the water, we could see straight down to all that beautiful coral.  It was amazing, and we could see quite a few fish just from the boat.  You can’t just dock your boat wherever you want, you have to tie up to a tree or something (just a law there, I suppose).  So we tied up to these trees and jumped out with our gear.  It was SO amazing!  And the camera Karl and my Mom got me for my birthday worked!  The video is a little more clear than the pictures, but I took a couple pictures.  We thought there were a lot of fish we could see from the boat.  As soon as you get under water, BAM!  The place exploded with fish.  It was so cool.  Here are just two video clips.  It’s a bit choppy and might make you sea-sick, but it gives you an idea of how many fish there were, and a cool variety as well.  Seriously, snorkeling was one of our favorite parts.

On our way back…it was actually kind of cold to me this day, especially after getting wet!  It was overcast the entire day and really not that warm to me (but I’m a person who is normally cold).  We stopped for lunch and then drove downtown Kona again.  We just loved the feel of it. Despite the menacing clouds, we took our chances and finally put the top down on the Jeep. We had really hoped to see the pod of dolphins while snorkeling.  A few people had seen them in that area, but we didn’t get to.  The next thing I really wanted to see was some turtles.  So I was pretty happy when Dillon and I drove to a pretty secluded beach (pretty much only accessible by Jeep or risk damage to your vehicle) and he spotted this turtle taking a nap.  We woke him up and he didn’t seem too impressed. We saw goats a couple times along the main highway. And Dev’s name :).  Then we met up with Karl and my Mom and had a yummy dinner at Macaroni Grill. Afterwards, Dillon and I headed back to Kona to see if there were any beaches with people hanging out and playing music.  There weren’t so we just stopped and listened to a couple different bands in town.  And we called it a night!