Snorkeling in Hanamua Bay

We started our day off in Starbucks and enjoyed an hour of downtime before we had to head back to the hostel for our tour pickup at 7:20am. The driver had a fifteen minute window in which he was suppose to pick us up and he didn't disappoint ten minutes later. We were the last in the tour pick up, and as we joined the crowd, everyone was given fins, a mask, and a snorkel. As the driver took us out to the bay, he gave us instructions on how to put the mask on and things not to do while in the water. He dropped us off and we had to wait in a long line to pay the nature perserve fee and then watch a nine minute film about the Bay. I wasn't feeling too good by this time as the putting on the mask to check the seal in the car left me a bit woozy, and the beating sun wasn't helping matters. I was already in a bad mood and I hadn't even gotten into the water. 

Once we made it through all the requirements, we walked down to the Bay. I tried to get a locker but I wasn't going to pay the $7 so I took my chances with the beach. Our driver had told us to wade into the water and the put our fins on which we did, however, as I was sitting down trying to wrestle with my fins it was brought to my attention that there was a Hawaiian Monk Seal behind me, and I was asked to give it some room. Of course trying to move out of the way with flippers attached to my feet made it hard to maneuver. I finally got away from the seal, fins attached, mask on, and snorkel I place, the only thing left to do was to go underwater. As soon as I did I panicked. I did not like seeing what was underwater. It took a while for me to acclimate my breathing to accommodate the snorkel, but trying to get that to work with the flippers was a task to complicated for me. I did my best and had a few good runs, swimming alongside Dad who was a snorkel natural. 

We saw tons of different types of fish, schools of fish, and even an eel which came out of its hole right next to me. Dad had to point it out to me because I was totally oblivious. I tried taking video and a few pictures but I'm not sure how they turned out, so I'll have to wait until I get home to see if we got anything good. I was just focused on trying not to panic or get eaten by the sea creatures below. 

We paid the $1.25 to take the tram back up the steep hill and met our driver at the bottom of the Bay. One of the families we traveled in with never showed up soit was just Dad and I and a couple from Vancover,  B.C.. We had a nice conversation on the way back. 

We had nothing else planned, but because I still hadn't seen a sea turtle, I did manage to finally see a mongoose or two, I wanted to go the aquariam after lunch. We ate at Teddy's Bigger Burger which was recommended to us by our driver. The aquariam was a little disappointing. Seeing some of the fish, especially the big ones were cool. There were two sharks! They were creepy to look at but I didn't see any teeth so I didnt totally lose it. There was one lonely sea turtle which just made me sad, but the octopus and jellyfish were cool to look at. With the aquariam throughtly looked through we went out and just laid in the grass, slept, and read. We took one final swim in the ocean and then off to dinner once last time in Waikiki. We had tried to find the karoke place one of Dad's friends has mentioned but it wasn't there. While we tried to find it there were loud booms, but we couldn't see the source becuase we were surrounded by buildings. Dad correctly deduced that they were fireworks and we were able to see the tail end of it when we walked to the corner. We started to walk towards the beach but they finished before we could get up there or get our cameras out. With no karoke we headed back for one more night at the hostel.