Swimming with the Turtles at Mauna Kea Beach
Alex: Today there wasn’t as good of boogie boarding as yesterday but there was AWESOME snorkeling! We went about 150 yards out to a coral reef! Me and sissy took our boogie boards. I snorkeled but sissy stayed on her boogie board. We saw some awesome fish! We also saw 2 turtles. We saw one eating in a little rock alcove at the surface. The other one was really little and cute! We saw it swim up to breath! We tried to boogie board but it didn’t work so well. It was pretty shallow and had lots of sand bars for a while out. We swam and floated on our boogie boards for a while. We had lunch at a restaurant on the beach. There was a place you could rent kayaks but they only rented them to you if you were staying at the hotel there.
Dan: Today we went to Mauna Kea Beach, located conveniently in front of the Mauna Kea Beach Resort. This beach is a great beach. It has great swimming and amazing snorkeling. As Alex noted, the boogie boarding isn’t as good as Hapuna (yesterday’s beach), but you can boogie board, particularly later in the day when the wind, and waves, both started to pick up.
Now, let’s get back to the snorkeling. For swimmers who aren’t afraid to wonder a few feet from shore, let‘s say 500 or so from the beach and 250 or so from the nearest rocks that you MIGHT be able to stand on if the waves didn’t knock you off, there was great snorkeling. There was good snorkeling closer in and in conditions that most snorkelers are more comfortable with, but I prefer the great snorkeling. When you got out there you could float over the rocks and coral and watch the fish and turtles eat. My first trip over this reef I saw a turtle having lunch. I was 20 feet directly above him and he didn’t even know it so I just floated there for several minutes and watch him. Later, with the entire family out snorkeling this area, we saw this turtle (same size, same area so I’m going to assume it was the same turtle) swim up to breathe and then he headed back down. I’ve seen fish in Kona, and in particular this beach, that I’ve never seen before. One in particular looked like a Bird Wrasse but his coloring isn’t the same as the one on my fish chart. The one I saw was a dark green in the back, a dark blue up front with an almost neon green vertical stripe about a third of the way back. He was very cool looking.
The coral in Kona, and at this beach, is fabulous and more prevalent than I’ve seen on the other Islands. On the other islands I’ve seen good coral fields, but here the coral fields a lot bigger and seem to go on forever. This was true of my dive on Thursday as well. The wall was a giant mass of coral that went on for a long ways.
Our lunch at the Mauna Kea Beach Resort beach side restaurant was very good, although it was perhaps the most expensive 3 burgers, 1 hotdog, 1 coke and 1 mango ice tea I’ve ever bought in my life.
All in all, this was an excellent beach and worth getting up early for in order to be able to get one of the coveted 30 parking stalls to go to this beach.
Dan: Today we went to Mauna Kea Beach, located conveniently in front of the Mauna Kea Beach Resort. This beach is a great beach. It has great swimming and amazing snorkeling. As Alex noted, the boogie boarding isn’t as good as Hapuna (yesterday’s beach), but you can boogie board, particularly later in the day when the wind, and waves, both started to pick up.
Now, let’s get back to the snorkeling. For swimmers who aren’t afraid to wonder a few feet from shore, let‘s say 500 or so from the beach and 250 or so from the nearest rocks that you MIGHT be able to stand on if the waves didn’t knock you off, there was great snorkeling. There was good snorkeling closer in and in conditions that most snorkelers are more comfortable with, but I prefer the great snorkeling. When you got out there you could float over the rocks and coral and watch the fish and turtles eat. My first trip over this reef I saw a turtle having lunch. I was 20 feet directly above him and he didn’t even know it so I just floated there for several minutes and watch him. Later, with the entire family out snorkeling this area, we saw this turtle (same size, same area so I’m going to assume it was the same turtle) swim up to breathe and then he headed back down. I’ve seen fish in Kona, and in particular this beach, that I’ve never seen before. One in particular looked like a Bird Wrasse but his coloring isn’t the same as the one on my fish chart. The one I saw was a dark green in the back, a dark blue up front with an almost neon green vertical stripe about a third of the way back. He was very cool looking.
The coral in Kona, and at this beach, is fabulous and more prevalent than I’ve seen on the other Islands. On the other islands I’ve seen good coral fields, but here the coral fields a lot bigger and seem to go on forever. This was true of my dive on Thursday as well. The wall was a giant mass of coral that went on for a long ways.
Our lunch at the Mauna Kea Beach Resort beach side restaurant was very good, although it was perhaps the most expensive 3 burgers, 1 hotdog, 1 coke and 1 mango ice tea I’ve ever bought in my life.
All in all, this was an excellent beach and worth getting up early for in order to be able to get one of the coveted 30 parking stalls to go to this beach.
Comments