Sept. 12, 2016  Around kauai looking for a place to snorkel!

One of the many benefits of this room is seeing the sunrise right from our livingroom----not that I actually did!  But Ken is up all hours of the day and night, so he took a few pictures of sunrise this morning.  Credit to Ken for getting a great picture!

According to the internet, the south beaches were suppose to be snorkelable again today.  So by 10:30 we were heading south.
Something holy about this road side site!

We are wondering what this sign means? 

When we got south, we drove by Lawai.  It looked snorkelable, but the surf was really crashing into the beach again and high tide wasn't even until 2:16 (when it's usually even tougher).  Getting in wouldn't have been much of a problem, but Ken could foresee problems getting out.  He cut his foot snorkeling in Maui and it still isn't totally healed. So we went on to Poipu.  The red flags were still up, which meant we wouldn't be snorkeling on the other side and didn't really want to spend all day snorkeling in front of the lifeguard station again.  On a few occasions, some sea mites have gotten us (usually me) and leave us with itchy welts.   Well, yesterday was one of those occasions.
So we went to breakfast at the Olympic Cafe in Poipu.  Very nice place and breakfast was great!
From there we decided to ride down to Salt Pond to see how it looked.  Of course it had red flags up and the surf was really crashing over the rocks we snorkel by.  So disgruntledly we headed back east.  Kelly at the meet and greet mentioned the right side of Moloaa being good for snorkeling so we decided to check it out.  Looked like it was doable, but Ken doesn't like to walk too far on the sand and it was pretty far to the right.
A couple times in the winter we were actually able to snorkel way over to the left. 

 To the right would have had to be way around to the sandy spot in the middle of this picture.

  So back to the car we went. We heard the Facebook guys wall was around here so took a different way out.  I presume this is the wall that has gotten so much criticism.

I was expecting a 10' tall eyesore.  

It was a little taller in this area.

 We figured we weren't too far from Anini now, so might as well go there.  At least it has pretty easy entry and exit.

right away i saw a light colored eel swimming around.  Then this guy swam out from under the other eel.

 the other one.

 This is a terrible picture, but I didn't want to get too close to this guy.  He was by far the largest eel I've seen and he seemed hungry.  He also seemed irritated.  Note the white area near it's head---that is a cloth ponytail holder.  It must have been on it's body for quite awhile.  Looked like it may have been lower on it's body at one time.  Hope he manages to get it off before it chokes him (or her).  This isn't the first time I've seen sealife with manmade rings stuck on them. 

We decided to head back to the coral area we found last time.  Saw these little guys on our way---male white spotted boxfish.  I find it interesting that they can be so different in color.

low and behold----another eel!

and a young yellowstripe coris.

 just a picture of the beautiful coral bed here.

and---another eel.  We've never seen so many eels as we have this trip.

There's my cute little young hogfish buddy.

 and a saddle wrasse---there are a bunch of these guys all around Kauai.

 more of the coral bed.

this is as far as we went.  Then you're in the boating lane.

And another eel.  This guy was swimming in and out of coral for quite awhile.

He could care less that we were there.

 cigar wrasse by some more colorful coral

Yes, I was amazed by all the coral.  Note all the fish around it---coronetfish, raccoon butterflyfish, teardrop butterfly fish, young parrotfish, ... .

 young white spot toby

 saw 3 tiny yellow tangs this time.

 they're so cute!

 More coral

 I love how the baby fish school together --- all different kinds. 

 They hang with their age group---even as they get older. 

almost reminds me of Maui.

 more schooling fish

a couple baby unicornfish.

 a couple adult yellowstrip goatfish.

 a school of medium sized yellow bar surgeonfish.

love these blue goatfish.

 a young female bird wrasse

 a large family of Dascylusses.

 After about 2 hours we decided to head in.  We didn't get there until almost 2:30, so it was getting late.  About halfway back in, I notice an odd color on a lone tall coral.  Made my day to see it is a Frogfish!  I never saw one before (except in an aquarium) and never expected to see one. 

 I took about 50 pictures to better the chances that I got 1 good one.  This camera really sucks when it comes to it's preview.  But i was able to photoshop a few decent pictures.

 It was actually greener then shown here.

 close up of it's head.

I guess i agitated it enough that it moved.  Then i had to take a bunch more!

 you can actually see it's eye and mouth here.

When I was done irritating it, we headed the rest of the way in.  It really calmed down while we were there.

 We sat at a picnic table for a bit drying off until we went and changed clothes.  All over the ground were these "nuts".  Wonder what they are?

 It was pretty close to sunset, so we headed up to Kilauea.  We saw a really nice sunset there several years ago.  Today's wasn't that great.  It got really cloudy so the clouds didn't change colors.

 But I always love another view of the Bali Hai.

Went straight back to the condo from there.  Had leftover pancakes from breakfast, spam, leftover waffle fries, and the left over fish from yesterday's dinner.  Odd dinner, but it tasted pretty good---and didn't cost $50.
One more day!  Depression is starting to set in.