Fishy Love

This morning when the early wake-up call came, we were ready and waiting!  Today was the day to snorkel Ka'anapali and we had a plan.  Get up with the rooster…check!  (He waited until 5am today, thanks for the extra sleep rooster!)  We ate our apple-bananas and slathered on the sun block.  I stretched out those muscles so tight from yesterday’s seven-mile run and we packed up our gear.  We were out the door by 6:15, just a little after sunrise.  The mile and a half walk went by quickly as we chatted in the comfortable early morning air.  By 6:45 we were stripping down to our swimsuits, stowing our shoes in beach bags and grabbing our gear.  The beach park has a fluffy sandy ocean entry, very few rocks to negotiate as you plunge into the surf and secure your fins and mask.  By seven, we were snorkeling toward Black Rock.  This is one of our favorite spots to snorkel on the island.  We first snorkeled here during our honeymoon and saw our first honus.  We returned on our trip four years later and here we are again.  No turtles today, but I guess we’ve had our share of encounters in front of the condo. 

One of the joys of snorkeling Ka’anapali (aside from the easy entry) is that you don’t have to swim out far to find a reef.  It goes pretty much like this.  Stand in the sandy shallows and put on your fins and mask, face down snorkel up, kick, kick kick, the bottom drops away, you’ve got plenty of clearance between your belly and the coral and there you are!  As far as the eye can see, Brain Coral, Yellow Tangs, Sergeant Majors, Fantail Filefish, Pennant Butterflies, Lionfish, and Trumpets galore.  We cruised past several reefs into a sandy area where I followed a huge spiny puffer for a while, I was trying to figure out what this shiny cleaner fish was, that was dancing up and down from his belly.  Sadly I realized it wasn’t a fish, but a weight attached to a fishing line and he was hooked.  Coming to the surface I could see the fisherman on shore who was reeling him in.  I started feeling like a hypocrite.  I swim with the fish, they are beautiful, I love the fish.  I eat the fish; they are delicious!  Oh the paradoxes that plague us as omnivores and occasional vegetarians! 

We hit a sand desert and wondered if we should keep heading south toward Black Rock, as if in answer to this question we surfaced a few feet from a paddle boarder who offered, “Even better snorkeling toward the north!”  “Thanks,” we croaked through snorkeled mouths and headed back to where we started.  We worked our way a bit more north and were rewarded with even shallower reefs. Not so shallow that our fins were in danger or disturbing the coral, but shallow enough that we got a super close up view of the fish, thus better visibility and identification than we’ve had in the past.  Getting tired we easily spotted our beach bags and paddled back to the sandy shore with no need to dodge any rocks.  We rinsed off in the beach shower, dressed, and headed back to the condo.  The walk back was much warmer and I was famished.  We got back at 9am, so that means we had two thirty-minute walks and 75 minutes of snorkeling this morning.  I’d say we more than burned off that banana.  This called for multiple cups of coffee, showers with soap and shampoo, and some pineapple bread with passion fruit pulp and cream cheese. 

Later there was pool time, reading, honu time, nap time, writing time, music time, lunch time (leftovers from last nights dinner and some cottage cheese and pineapple), more creative time, lanai time, and of course dinner time.  We used up the last of the macadamia nut pesto on some pasta with mushrooms and a salad with grape tomatoes and lemon vinaigrette; a vegetarian meal to repent for my hypocritical love of fish and love of eating fish!   The tradition at sunset is that someone or multiple people here on the Westside blow their conch shell, when you hear that pop out back to catch an incredible view.  I just heard the conch blow, so I got to go!

I’m back!  Our Canadian neighbor popped in just after sunset to let us know there was another honu on the beach.  This is becoming a fairly regular nightly event that never decreases in its ability to pull us from the comforts of our comfortable home.  The magical experience of seeing one of these creatures in all its glory, erases the fear of post sunset mosquito bites. (We both have one more of these tonight; aloe seems to be a good remedy!)  This time she was hunkered with her nose to the wall, the sea still clipping at her back fins, impossible to go down on the sand to see her and give her ample room.  So we perched atop the sea wall and peeked down at her gloriousness.  Sang her a lullaby as we headed back to the room. Yes, I know we are weird, but this is one of the many reasons that we’ve been married 8 years and are still going strong, we are both the same kind of weird!