Hawaii...Day 3

We began day 3 with a trip to the pier to catch a boat ride that would take us out to a real-life submarine! We were about to embarq on a 1 hour ride 100 feet below the surface of the ocean. This is the easy way to see the coral reef and some of those exotic fish that swim in and around the islands.



After we all got down the ladder into the belly of the sub, we all chose a good seat next to a window so we could have a great view of the reef and the other sights at these depths. Something I didn't realize was that at 100 feet, the sun's rays are bent so much that you loose the reds and greens, but still blue and yellow are visible. So everything looks sort of "blah" down here. That was a disappointment. We were told that if we were to take the "tree-like" coral up to the surface, it would be very bright red, and the rounded coral would be a beautiful green. I wish I could have done some "magic" with my camera to bring out the color, but it is an impossibility! We just have to use our imaginations to visualize the colors.


After that exotic trip to "another world", we surfaced and loaded back onto the little boat that would take us back to the pier. We all had one super time!


We disembarqed the boat and made our way back to our parked car, stopping at a couple of shops on the way for some souveniers. We all decided to go back to the condo for a delicious salad and other treats, provided by Billy, and rested a little bit before getting ready for our next adventure.

I don't know how many people that I know have ever snorkled with Manta Ray's, but this is one adventure that really excited me and Anna. Billy was "so-so" about it all, and Dean was a little apprehensive, but both were good sports and joined in the activity. I don't have any pictures of the actual swimming with the Manta Ray's to post, because we only took 35mm water-camera shots, and I haven't got them ready to put on the computer yet. Perhaps I will add them at a later date. But the trip by boat to the little bay where we would join 3 other boats and their crews was exciting. We left just before sunset, because this is an activity that takes place at night, in the dark!



After considerable instruction about what we would be doing and safety briefing, and calming Dean down about not being able to swim with a life vest, we all donned our wet suits, swim fins, and snorkles and got ready to "jump into the wonderfully warm water!" There was a crew of scuba divers who had entered the water before us and were positioning themselves on the bottom. They each had a flashlight that they would shine upwards to attract the plankton. They all sat around in a huge circle, with four stationary lights positioned in the middle like a campfire.


Once we were in the water, we grabbed onto a circular styrofoam ring and swam to the "blue" area where the lights were. Once we were in position over the diver's lights, we all turned on our flashlights and pointed them downward. You could see the plankton literally floating like little "dust" particles in the water. The first thing that I noticed were a swirl of probably 50 or so Makeral swimming in a circle below us. They are plankton eating fish, as well.

Then, as if out of nowhere, there was this huge mouth coming up towards me, connected to the white underbelly of my first encounter with a live Manta Ray! It was startling, at first, but as it got closer, it began to swerve backward into a circular motion and away from me. I kid you not -- it felt like it was mere micro-millimeters away from my body and face. It was quite unnerving.

But, then we all settled into watching this amazing "dance" underwater, as the Manta Ray's (we counted 8 or 9 of them) repeated over and over again their swirling motions beneath us. I have never witnessed anything so beautiful and amazing before in my whole life. There was an Australian couple next to us who were filming the entire thing on an underwater video camera. I am anxious for them to send us their video -- so far it hasn't arrived in our email as yet.

We were in the water some 45 minutes, quite enough time to really get our fill of a wonderful adventure. There were moments, when I started shivering, and later the leader of the group told us that there was an underground fresh water source that came into the bay periodically, and that water was colder than the ocean water. That is why we felt cold water from time to time.

All in all, we had an amazing trip and I would do it again in a heartbeat. I loved the experience, and Dean and Billy said, they were glad that they did it, too (even though at one point one of the ray's got "spooked" and dove right into Billy, hitting him in the neck! It scared him, for a moment!)

This was a very good day!