After breakfast we did some snorkeling at the beach in our resort and then drove down to snorkel in Kahalu'u Bay as well. Unfortunately, we didn't read the warnings about this bay. Apparently, it's a dying reef and conservationists have been asking people of the island not to snorkel there. However, some tour groups haven't honored this request and we found the place was full of tour vans and tourists.
There was plenty of sea life, but the way that these people were treating the bay was appalling. Children were swimming after a puffer fish. Were they not told these are poisonous? Fathers were picking up large rocks to see what was underneath. It was sad to see how the reef was being treated. Who knows if that bay has any hope. Maybe it's only hope is that someday the bay can be used to educate tourists about the harm that can happen when the reef isn't respected.
We snorkeled out closer to the surfers where it was deeper. There was probably just 20 feet visibility, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw something large underwater. On second glance, there it was - my first sea turtle sighting of the trip. I turned and tapped on my husbands arm excitedly. LOOK!!! I wanted to yell, but the snorkel in my mouth made it just sound like "Oouk! Ururl!"It was so cool!! I mean, I've done it before - swam with sea turtles. In fact I blogged about the incident where I had a little too much to drink the night before a dive and kinda spewed next to the sea turtles. But even if I've done it before, it's still pretty cool and just as exciting as the first time (That's what she said).
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