Hawaii, Continued

Seen on the patio this morning:

Gekkos - lots of gekkos

I saw a gekko catch a yellow moth as I gazed out the kitchen window - the yellow fluttering of the moth's wings caught my eye - immediately it was caught on the gekko's tongue - hanging there as the gekko decided what to do next - a littler gekko was following it - perhaps learning an important lesson about hunting. In an instant, the larger gekko disappeared at the base of the post it was on - and then out of sight!

Today we took a "grueling" 2 mile hike downhill to Kealekekua Bay (1:10) where the snorkeling is famed for its richness.

Well, at least we weren't hiking on this!!!!

We snorkeled for about an hour, rested and ate a snack, and then headed back uphill in the afternoon heat (1:40). We are exhausted, but the snorkeling was, indeed, wonderful.

Here is a small clip of what we viewed today:

We are glad we followed all precautions, such as taking and drinking plenty of water, taking snacks, using sunscreen, and wearing hiking shoes. This hike is not for the casual tourist, and even though it is overall a shorter roundtrip than our usual 4.5 mile hike around Lake Argyle, with its seven somewhat steep hills, it was much more difficult. I am glad I had my walking stick, although Ron did not have his. Three different times, my foot slipped on loose rocks, and I basically sat down to avoid falling or twisting my ankle.

Here we are halfway back up the hill, and quite ready to be to the top already!

1:10 hike down the mountain, 1 hour of snorkeling, halfway back up the mountain - about 45 minutes left to go!

Beautiful Kealekekua Bay

But, oohhh, the snorkeling!!!!! I saw many different multi-colored fish. You can see some of them in this short video above. I do not know the names of all the fish I saw, but if someone asked me which ones I saw, I might answer "all of them!".  In addition to the small-ish fish in this video, I saw some that were at least ten inches long and almost as wide - neon colored blues and greens, deep reddish-purple, spots, stripes, and patterns of all sorts. And I saw some interesting thin, long (about 8 to 10") fish close to the surface of the water - they had snout-like noses and were silver, I think.

A really neat experience was when I got about 30 feet or so from the shore, and the ocean floor dropped away so that you couldn't see it any more. The water was a deep lapis-lazuli blue - the "deep blue sea" - it was mesmerizing to view. Turning back toward shore, you could see a sort of "wall of coral".

Ron told me that he has seen much brighter colors of coral before, and was concerned about the whiteness and lack of color of the coral. He read that the coral all around Hawaii is losing its color as a defense against the warming of the ocean due to climate change. It is sad to think we may be the last generation see this amazing ecosystem.

Here is an article he found that explains what is happening: http://www.mikesevernsdiving.com/blog/2015/10/coral-bleaching-is-that-white-coral-dead/.

We did get to see a brief sunset after we returned home this afternoon. It was a bright red ball of sun setting behind some strands of clouds.

Life saver near Pebble Beach

The developed area where we are staying is on the road to Kahoe Bay. We drove down the road this morning before leaving for Kealekekua Bay, just to have a look around. At the base is Pebble Beach. It is not one of the more touristy sites, and is even said to have the steepest drop to the ocean of anywhere on the Big Island. Although someone told us yesterday: "Don't swim in that bay, there is a strong current", after viewing the waves this morning, well, you can judge for yourself if you would try a swim in this water:

Pebble Beach at Kaohe Bay

Here are some other sights from the past day:

"Da Poke" is tuna tartare. We tried the local smoked pork - delicious. Also, the spicy crab salad was good.

Even though you are driving on a "highway", you really can't drive very fast, so everything takes longer than you might suppose. We are close to mile marker 96 on Mamaloa Highway, if you want to find us on a map. It is close to Pebble Beach at Kaohe Bay.

Across the road from where we had lunch

Funny Sign

Centipedes around here can be dangerous - their stings are poisonous. We saw many of them for about the first half or so of our hike - they seemed to prefer the grassy area to the rocks.