Day 6—Snorkeling…and burning.

Our view heading out to snorkel.

Our last full day, we went snorkeling.  We knew it was likely that we would end up burning no matter what precautions we took, so better to do it on the last day than the first!  We took spray sun screen, and added more, plus I wore a swim shirt, we both wore hats, etc.  Still, our feet burned, shoulders, neck, etc.  Oh well.  We’ll know tomorrow (or tonight) how badly!  Anyway, our Captain’s name was Kirk.  So, yeah, we cruised with Captain Kirk!  I wanted to call his first mate “Spock”, but refrained.  Anyway, on the way out they had a little breakfast (fruit and breads).  I guess they were not worried about us swimming less than 60 minutes after eating.

Monument to Captain Cook...from the water!

Anyway, the first stop was “Cook’s Landing” or properly known as “Kealakekua Bay”.  This is where Captain Cook landed.  Since he arrived in the middle of a festival, where the god being honored was believed to one day return on a great winged something or other, the giant sailing ships definitely made a statement.  Thousands of Hawaiian’s swam out to greet the arriving god.  The monument is on land that the Queen of Hawaii gave to England long before becoming part of the US.  So, it is the “only” foreign soil in the US (Embassies notwithstanding).  It had cannons on the perimeter, I guess in case the US tries to take it back?

Fish.  I'm not an ichthyologist, so we're going with "fish".

Yellow fish.  (I think)

Yellow fish and not yellow fish.

Moorish Idol (I found a book).

School of Fish (letting out, I guess?)

Fish.

Fish with stripes.

Not a fish.  Psst!  It's behind you, Theresa!

Anyway, after about 45 minutes of swimming, floating, diving, and looking at fish, we moved on to the next location, which they called the Coral Gardens.  More fish.  The underwater terrain was certainly different, but the fish seemed the same.  We had some time so they encouraged us to cannonball off the bow if we liked.  (See below pics)

Yellow Fish.

We had lunch somewhere in there, which was good.  They made a third stop at a place called “The end of the world”.  People jump off from a cliff (25-30 feet) into an area just outside a cave.  We only saw one guy jump, but lots of people were clambering about the cliff side.  I thought about chanting “Jump!  Jump!  Jump!!”, but decided that might sound rude.

Splash!!

Not a fish.

 

At port, a few tiny birds visited us to clean up crumbs and morsels after lunch.

Lava Tube and hapless tourist.

We disembarked and started home.  On the way, we recalled seeing a lava tube on the side of the road.  So, we stopped.  Recalling that lava travels mostly under the surface, it leaves behind a tube sometimes.  As the tube collapses in time, I didn’t travel too far into it.

Anyway, with all of this talk of fish, I think we might head out for fish for dinner!