In the hopes of getting another day of snorkeling in before heading home, we went back to Poipu Beach Park today. Once again when we got there, there was another Hawaiian Monk Seal resting on the beach. I don’t know if we just didn’t spend enough time on the beaches on past trips to Kauai or if the seals come ashore more in February than in October, but it has been amazing to us how many of these guys we have seen on this trip.
After taking a few pictures of the seal, we set-up our beach mats and umbrella and considered heading into the water. Once again, the wind was quite brisk and it was rather chilly. In fact, after sitting on the beach for a few minutes, we watched a rather menacing cloud come toward us. Within minutes, we were huddled together under the beach umbrella during a heavy, but mercifully short, downpour.
Cold though it was, I really wanted to snorkel again, so I summoned warm thoughts and started into the water, taking my time getting acclimated. Once I was submerged, I found that, although the water was a bit choppy and cloudy, there were a whole lot of fish swimming around me, including this cool trumpet fish that I followed around for a while.
I stayed in the water for about an hour before my teeth finally started chattering and I decided I’d had enough. I knew I had been having trouble getting fish in the frame of the camera (I blame the cloudy water and my hands shaking from the cold), but it was really ridiculous when I started looking at the pictures later. I took many, many pictures, and ended up with many, many pictures of rocks. Most of the below photos have been suitably cropped to feature the intended target.
And that’s it. We leave for home tomorrow and go back to work on Friday. It’s been a fantastic trip and I’ve been able to check several activities off of my list. Thankfully, I think there just might be enough left for another vacation in the future.