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Not very scenic or picturesque, but this shot gives an idea of how clear the water was, and what color. (Big image, small.) |
Thursday, March 8, an
unplanned day of snorkeling
Our best-laid plan for this day was to go on another tour organized by Hawaii Forest & Trail, this one involving a drive up to the top of Mauna Kea around sunset, to catch the view of the stars from two miles up. I was defintely looking forward to this, what with my long-standing interest in astronomy. But we got a call in the morning that because of snow on Mauna Kea overnight, the adventure had to be cancelled.
Mark asked me whether I had any other ideas, and I said that I thought it would be most unfortunate to spend a week in Hawai‘i without getting into the water and snorkeling about somewhat. So we looked into the possibilities, asking the concierges their opinion, and wound up driving past Kona town to the Fair Wind Big Island Ocean Guides, an apparently thriving business that runs a big catamaran out to locations for snorkeling and such water sports. Our destination was Kealakekua Bay, a historic place for any number of reasons: for instance, it’s where Captain Cook first landed. Anyhow, we were there for the excellently clear waters in this relatively protected bay, and I planned to take full advantage of it.
We got to the guide company’s location well before the departure time, so we sat and cooled our heels there for a good while. Not terribly elegant surroundings, naturally, but I took a few shots. (Upper left shot: big image, small; upper right: big image, small; lower left: big image, small; lower right: big image, small.) In the last of these, you see the catamaran, Fair Wind II, coming in with the previous tour group.
The two upper pictures in the right column show the clarity of the water (top picture: big image, small; middle: big image, small). We parked in about 50 feet of water, and before long we were into it. I missed my extra-long fins: I hd brought them to Hawai‘i, but for some unknown reason had decided not to pack them for the drive to Kona. Diving down was consequently rather tougher than I would have liked. I also had some trouble keeping the water out of my mask and out of my breathing tube. Facial hair and diving masks are not designed for each other. I swallowed a bit of brine, but at least didn’t get any into my air passages.
The swimming and diving was loads of fun, but the weather was gray the whole time, and that meant that the contrast was not good. All colors were muted, not just because of the bue water, but also because of the diffuse lighting. Mark took pictures with the water-resistant camera, but because the light was so dim, he felt that he had to use flash. This always causes a certain amount of back-scattering from whatever suspended there may be in the water, and so the flash decreases the photographic contrast further.
As we frolicked in the water, I found that I was getting cold sooner than Mark. So I climbed out and put on my t-shirt, while he continued for a bit. Before long, we were all called back to the boat, and we got under way. The ride back was pleasantly rough, but not so bad as to threaten sea-sickness. You can see the gray aspect of the ocean and land, but not its roughness, in the bottom picture at the right (big image, small).
We drove back through Kona on the way to our resort, and decided to have supper there. It’s a fairly rowdy tourist town, not nearly as genteel as Waikoloa, and the restaurant we ate in, Lulu’s, was pleasantly grungy, though perfectly clean. It was a welcome change from the chichi places we had been eating in mostly. From there we drove back to our hotel, and got ready for the next day’s adventure, in its way a very memorable one.