Sept. 11, 2016  Poipu snorkeling:

I guess I made up for a not too exciting day yesterday and took a ton of pictures today!

First was from our lanai again.  

Love watching the surf roll.  Love the constant roar of the ocean, too. 

I guess they don't have fishing pole limits here!  

back to the rolling waves.

Unlike in Maui where the snorkeling is better in the morning before the winds pick up, the winds don't seem to change much here.  So we don't rush off early.  I do like to try to plan our snorkeling around low tide, but low tide today was about 8:30pm, so we ended up out there at high tide.  It's often calmer as the tide goes down.    We ended up leaving our condo at about 11:30.
This is the view from our front lanai.  Not a bad view there, either!

the lawn by our parking lot.

We drove by Lawai beach first, but with high tide approaching, there wasn't much beach left and it was pounding the shoreline.  So we continued on to Poipu.  This doesn't show it, but it was pounding here pretty well, too, so we just snorkeled in the area in front of the life guard station.  The life guard had red flags up by the other side of the now flooded tombola. 

This shows the pounding a little better, but once you get out there it's not too bad.

 chillin' in the water.

 first little guy I saw---a rock mover.

yellowstripe goatfish

Reef triggerfish

 unicorn fish

one of the schools of young surgeonfish

a sea hare---about the size of my fist.  it's head is to the left.

 either a female Christmas wrasse of a female Surge wrasse.

 a male Christmas wrasse attacking a brittle star.

loving the clouds.

a school of large ringtail surgeonfish

a threadfin butterflyfish looking for a handout

 a male palenose parrotfish

at one point I swam around to the rock wall in the family section.  Not much there but these tiny fish.

Elegant coris

a large unicornfish

many bar goatfish

 About 5 minutes before this pictures was taken, I glanced to the right and a monk seal was about 2 feet from me swimming towards the shore.  It was so sudden, I didn't even have time to turn my camera on and take a picture!  Soon the lifeguard was announcing a seal was coming in and give him room.  Of course a crowd of people appeared on the beach and followed him.  He tried to come ashore a couple times, but the crowds were relentless.  Here is a picture of some of the crowd following it.

back to snorkeling----a really light colored moray eel.  The first of about 5 or 6 eels that we saw!

 a moorish idol

 a raccoon butterflyfish  munching on a little sea cucumber.

i believe this is a surge wrasse with a chunk out of it's head.  don't know if it was attacked or scraped it on the rocks. 

 time for another view of the sky.

large female palenose parrotfish

 I was trying to get a picture of the snowflake eel, but this Christmas wrasse kept getting in the way.  Then i noticed there is another type of sea cucumber here, too.

finally got a picture of the snowflake eel.

Another picture of the snowflake eel.

In the same area as the other eels was this one, too.  It was all brown with a neon green colored tip of it's fin.  

 Ambon toby

 We snorkeled for 4 hours straight.  Then got out and showered and changed.  Being thirsty, we went over to Brennecki's Deli and got a shaved ice.  Mine was a mango, coconut, and passion fruit --- yum!!!

Now that's a motor cycle momma!

 It was actually raining while we ate our shaved ices, but we sat on the covered stoop in front of the store and watched the world go on.

 We still had about an hour or so until sunset, so Ken dropped me off at Moir Gardens at Kiahuna Plantation Resort and waited for me to take a million picture of the gorgeous orchids, bromiliads, and cacti.
One of the many bromiliads here.  These are what's now being blamed for the zika virus growing in South Florida.  They are a stiff leafed plant and water sits in the middle of them.  Although i don't know how they can pinpoint it being bromiliads that are growing the mosquitoes!  There certainly are a lot of other stagnant bodies of water there that mosquitoes love.

on to the orchids.

 Looks like a nice place to eat.  Might have to check it out one of these years.

 I assume there was a reason for this sign!  Who would pick the flowers?!

looking up towards the restaurant.

looking back on the pathway.

love it and love that it's free!

 there's even a bunch of tropical plants.

 and a large cactus garden.

 looking back through the cactus garden.

 It started raining pretty good now, so I booked it to the car.  It was so overcast that we gave up on sunset and headed back to the East side.  Don't know what ended up happening on the South shore, but the skies changed colors on the East side.  Didn't have time to stop, though, so I took this while riding to Kapaa to Olympic Cafe. 

Love the stuff in the little store under the restaurant.  I assume these are carved goards?

not a great picture, but I love this carving!

Dinner was great again and much more reasonably priced then Bull Shed.  Ken got the seafood assortment for something like $19.  

 I got the fish and chips for something like $15.  i like that they use Ono for their fish and chips.  It's much meatier then most fish.

And that's it for today.   Another great day!