There are a lot of good snorkeling sites in Hawaii. Oahu has Hanauma Bay, Maui has Molokini Crater, and the Big Island has Kealakekua Bay. Today we visited Kealakekua Bay, the Big Island's premier snorkel destination.
The orientation of the bay, and the lava rock peninsula create a very protected bay for a super developed coral reef. It is possible to feel like a part of the school when snorkeling around the shallows. There are just so many different kinds of beautiful fish here. Just offshore the reef slopes away into the blue abyss, sometimes visited by Hawaiian spinner dolphins.
Kealakekua was a very sacred place to the ancient Hawaiians. Its name translates to 'Pathway to the Gods.' Bones of ancient Hawaiians are buried in the many lava tubes that dot the giant cliffs forming the southern wall of the bay. Is is also the historical site where the first western captain, Captain James Cook, landed in the Hawaiian Islands. Unfortunately for Cook, that ended up in his demise. However it did put Hawaii on the map... although with the name of the Sandwich Islands.
Nowadays the bay is mostly visited by snorkel tours from Kona town. We were quite lucky this visit, with the rough conditions outside the bay, we had the spot pretty much to ourselves. It was the only game in town, so we spent the entire morning here doing two different snorkels with our guests. We ended up seeing a white tip reef shark, a couple of moray eels, big bluefin trevally, huge schools of goatfish and yellow tangs, rarely seen reticulated butterflyfish, and even the super rare black morph of the longnose butterflyfish.
Ready to jump in to snorkel Kealakekua Bay!
This is our tender, the small boat that brought us over from the Safari Explorer, our small expedition ship. We are lucky that we have a permit to bring our boats into this bay.
Look at the color of that water!
You had to freedive to see this shark, as it was snoozing down under a ledge.
This is what the shallows look like. Huge school of yellow tangs.
One of our guests enjoying his morning snorkel.
Enjoying some clear water.
More clear water for fish watching.
Watching bluefin trevally and a huge white mouth moray eel hunting together.
Freediving with a school of goatfish.
One of our guests found this whitemouth moray eel poking out from beneath a rock.
Posing in front of the Captain Cook monument.
One of my favorite finds, a reticulated butterflyfish!
Check out this destination on pinmapple here:
And as always, keep traveling.
- Dai Mar
