I learned to snorkel! Or at least mostly. My fins actually didn’t make it to Hawaii for I think 6 weeks after I sent them express overnight or whatever it is called lol. It was a bit of a disaster, but more on that another day.
We started the day getting a delicious breakfast, with Kona coffee, obvi. Then we settled in at Hāpuna Beach State Recreation Area, which was absolutely wonderful! 10/10. Clean public bathrooms and showers. Covered picnic areas. And the beach genuinely took our breath away. The water was the most perfect turquoise with soft white sand. It felt like something out of a dream.
We put on our gear and headed into the gentle surf to find that sticking your face underwater and trusting your life to a breathing tube was a bit of a mental hurdle to overcome. Once we did though, we were rewarded with seeing several types of fish, including some that looked like Dory from Finding Nemo and a sea turtle!
I actually rushed out of the water to catch my breath after seeing the turtle. It was a bit overwhelming, but in the best way. Whitle green sea turtles (honu) are technically off of the endangered species list, other varieties are still critically endangered. Seeing one in the wild felt really special.
I saw another one a bit later and while the mom was telling him to stay back, a little boy was getting closer than I felt comfortable with. 😅 We need to remember whenever we are in nature that we are visitors and need to be responsible.
After getting enough sun that I slightly burned my buns, (thank goodness I was wearing an spf shirt and sunscreen) we grabbed lunch at a poke restaurant. Some quick reading by the pool and then we walked over to SeaQuest for our manta ray encounter!
One of the reasons that we decided to stay at the Outrigger hotel is that is actually the birthplace of the manta rays coming in to feed. The hotel shone light into the water as a nice thing for guests to relax and watch at night. This attracted the plankton that make up manta rays’ diets. Now in that same little bay, that is where we jumped into the dark ocean to take a closer look at them.
As someone who hasn’t been out in the ocean past where I could easily swim to shore, I felt a bit unnerved. That moment, sitting staring into the dark depth before jumping overboard I gave a quick acknowledgement of respect to the ocean and hoped to not make the news the next day after having been lost from the group. 😂 It’s funny but true.
The manta rays knew what was up though and were already doing their swooping ballet under the blue lights attached to the float. You may not realize quite the scale of these gentle giants until they are brushing against your knuckles. They have wingspans ranging from 10 to 15 feet (3 to 4.5 meters). At one point we had five dancing below us! One of whom had a damaged mouth fin and is well known in the area. It was genuinely such a surreal experience.
The cold and the floating and the motion did make me a tiny bit seasick. After walking back to the hotel, we ate a delicious dinner and that helped a lot. Then it was off to bed in anticipation of the next day! Which I will hopefully share in less than a year’s time lol.
Yes, it has been a year since I went to Hawaii, and I’m just getting around to sharing day two. Life happens, and I honestly needed a little time to digest the experience. Every second I tried to cut after I first got back felt like one I couldn’t part with. Thanks for reading, and I hope you’ll check out the video!
Living Wildly Well 