Tag Archives: snorkeling

Moorea

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After our cruise ended, we stayed an extra two days on Moorea in an overwater bungalow. This was an item on my bucket list that I never thought I’d have a chance to cross off. I don’t think I can truly put into words how awesome it was to stand on our deck and be able to see fish, stingrays, and sharks clearly. We spent every day walking outside, jumping into the water, and snorkeling for hours.

On our first day we checked in, grabbed lunch, and hopped in the water to snorkel. After snorkeling, we enjoyed some champagne, a sunset, and some pretty awesome stingray watching.

Saying bye to our ship from the ferry to Moorea!
Loved that we could sit and look at the water inside!
Quite a view.
This stingray seems to be missing it’s tail :(.
Huge pufferfish!
Spotted eagle ray. So graceful!

After our sunset, we headed to dinner at the crepe restaurant. At night, the blacktip reef sharks come to visit the restaurant so we had quite a few friends hanging out for dinner.

So cool.
Mango Rotui!
Delicious crepes for dinner!

After dinner, we crashed after our big day and got some sleep so we could do it all over again!

 

We woke up on Friday and started our day on stand up paddleboards in the lagoon. We saw tons of fish, sharks, and took in some great views. After that, we grabbed our snorkel gear and jumped in the water. The day brought more fish, more sharks, and a snowflake eel!

Pufferfish
Pufferfish
Butterflyfish
Wrasse
Giant spider conch shell
Triggerfish who constantly protected her nest by attacking us as we got in the water.
Snowflake eel. So cool!
Longhorn Cowfish
Triggerfish

We ate dinner again with the sharks and organized ourselves so we could spend the morning in the water before we had to check out!

 

We woke up on Saturday and made the most of the few hours we had left. We spent the morning in the water with some familiar fish. We went pretty far out in the lagoon and on our way back we encountered a giant moray eel…which is the scariest thing I’ve seen in the water snorkeling and diving. He was really annoyed at us and came pretty far out from the coral and made it known he was pissed by baring his teeth at us. Pictures do not do this thing justice. Pretty cool that we got to see this without an incident!

View of our bungalow from the water.
Loved these tiny blue fish!
Giant moray eel
Another shot of the giant moray eel.
Super sad our bucket list vacay is coming to an end.
Had the best time ever!
Beautiful flowers in the lobby as we were heading out.

We checked out of our hotel, grabbed the ferry back to Tahiti, and headed to the airport to hang out until our flight left. No words can describe how incredible this trip was and the pictures only start to do everything justice. So thankful we were fortunate enough to see this part of the world! ❤

Cruise: Raiatea

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Our next stop was Raiatea, where we actually docked vs. anchored in the bay. We were the very first people off the boat and rented another car to explore the island. We drove all the way around the island to see as much as we could.

After we circled the island, we walked through Uturoa and then had lunch on the boat. In the afternoon, we did a drift snorkel in a coral garden on Tahaa (Tahaa shares a lagoon with Raiatea). It was pouring rain when we left, which made for an adventurous boat ride across the lagoon. It cleared up and the snorkeling was incredible. We drifted right over a really shallow coral garden and saw a ton of fish and beautiful coral.

Enjoying some delicious fruit after our snorkel.
The water was so clear!
Bora Bora in the distance

After an amazing afternoon, we were the last to board the boat. We caught an amazing sunset from our balcony before a delicious dinner.

Cruise: Bora Bora

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Our next stop was Bora Bora, which is tied with Fakarava as my favorite stop on our trip. We were here for a day and a half, which was the longest port stay of the trip. We arrived in the afternoon and anchored off Vaitape. On our first evening there, we took a sunset cruise on a catamaran and explored the lagoon. It was an incredible evening and a great way to explore the water.

First shot of Bora Bora from our balcony.
Reading and enjoying the view.
Pulling in to anchor.
Getting ready for our sunset sail.
Just slightly windy.
Overwater bungalow mansions. These were insane!

After our sunset sail, we ate dinner at the food trucks in Vaitape. We decided to split a HUGE portion of fish. It was quite delicious and we enjoyed spending a night off the boat!

Food trucks.
Fancy food trucks with baskets of bread.
Huge portion of fish for dinner!

After dinner, we took a tender boat back to the ship and headed to bed to prepare for our early morning start to explore Bora Bora.

We woke up the next morning pretty early to grab the earliest tender boat and get to shore to explore. We rented a car (Fiat Panda) and drove around the entire island. Our first stop was Matira Beach, which we had entirely to ourselves. We were standing there enjoying the view when all of a sudden a stingray swam just inches from the shore. This was our first stingray spotting of the trip and it was such an awesome sight to see! I will never forget standing there and glancing down to see it!

Beach to ourselves.
Bungalows on the beach!
Stingray!

After a lengthy stop at Matira Beach we kept driving around the island. We stopped at various places to check out all of the views. We also had our first encounter with a land crab who was not overly pleased to see us!

Josh enjoying the view.
Land crab.

After we drove around the entire island, we went back to have lunch at a restaurant off Matira Beach. We had a great view of the beach, ocean, and stingrays!

Quite a view for lunch.

After lunch, we returned to Vaitape to return the car and meet up for our afternoon excursion of snorkeling. We spent quite the afternoon in the water. Our first stop was a coral garden where we saw a variety of fish, oysters, a huge stingray, and a blacktip reef shark. After that, we headed to our second stop to snorkel with stingrays and backtip reef sharks. It was shallow enough for us to stand the entire time as they swam around us. It was a surreal experience!

Oyster in the coral garden.
Such clear water.
Love the blue of the water in this picture.

After our tour was over, we headed back to catch a tender boat back to the ship and just enjoyed room service after a long, fantastic day!

 

The Big Island: Trip 5

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A couple weekends ago, we met our friends Lindsay and Channa on The Big Island for a quick trip. They were visiting from Seattle so we decided to crash their vacation for a couple days.

Saturday was a bit rainy so we slept in and then walked into Kailua for brunch. We ate at Daylight Mind Coffee Company (which was delicious) and then wandered back to our hotel.

My delicious (and pretty) latte.
Fish tacos
Papaya bowl and avocado toast
Such pretty flowers

After eating plenty of food, we decided to go on a short walk to the End of the Earth. We watched a few people jump off the rocks and enjoyed the spectacular view of the ocean.

Taking in the view

After a relaxing day, we walked to dinner and enjoyed the evening!

On Sunday we decided to go snorkeling at Two Step. Great location with tons of fish! Videos below!

After lots of snorkeling, we worked up an appetite. We ate lunch at Da Poke Shack before saying bye and venturing back to Oahu! The poke was DELICIOUS.

 

The Big Island: Trip 4 – Day 6

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Of all the amazing days we had planned on our trip, I think I was most excited about this day/night because we had our Manta Ray night snorkel. This had been on my bucket list for a few years so I was REALLY looking forward to it!

The snorkel definitely did not disappoint. We went with Wahine Charters and I would highly recommend them to anyone! We took off from the harbor, had a half hour boat ride filled with stars and arrived at the site ready to hop in the water. We held on to these light boards and the manta rays were attracted to the plankton that are attracted to the light. They do somersaults and almost look like they are going to swim straight for you and turn at the last minute. It was so incredible it completely took my breath away.

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The Big Island: Trip 3 – Day 1

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This past weekend, Josh and I headed to the Big Island one last time for our last trip before Josh deploys and I move. We flew in on Friday night and checked into our hotel to get some sleep before starting our early and very busy Saturday.

Our first stop of the weekend was kayaking across Kealakekua Bay to the Captain Cook Monument to snorkel. The snorkeling and kayak tour came highly recommended to us and they definitely did not disappoint! On our 1 1/2 mile kayak to the monument, we were surrounded by a pod of spinner dolphins. It was so amazing to be so close to them and on their level! The video below shows just how close they were too us. Amazing!

Kayaking with Dolphins Video

After kayaking over to the monument, we landed our kayaks and got our snorkel gear ready. We also took some time to admire the monument. Captain Cook first visited the islands in 1778. It was thought that he and his crew were gods and were welcomed with open arms during a time of peace. After exploiting the kindness of the Hawaiian people, he left and returned during a time of war where he was not exactly welcomed back with open arms. He was killed in the bay by the Hawaiians and the monument memorializes his death.

Kealakekua Bay.
Captain Cook Monument.
Kealakekua Bay from the other side.
Amazing cliffs.

Next, it was time to snorkel!! It was absolutely stunning. By far the best snorkeling I have ever seen. I could have spent hours just swimming around the area. It was great, as we were the only group (us and one other couple with our guide) and two other random people. We beat the crowd of tour boats!

Kealakekua Bay Snorkeling Video

Trumpetfish. Amazing!
Me swimming with a Needlefish. They were everywhere.
Tons of baby Needlefish on the surface…so hard to see.
Tons of yellow tangs.
Yellow Tang up close and personal.
Fourspot Butterfly.
Rainbow Butterflys.
Parrotfish.
More of the Parrotfish.
Grouper.
Amazing coral life.
Orange Spined Tang.
Orangeband Surgeonfish.
Two big Needle fish.
Parrotfish and yellow tangs.
Pennant fish.
Threadfin Butterfly .
Black Surgeonfish.
Arc-eye Hawkfish and Spotted Sharpnose Puffer.
Black Surgeonfish.
Trumpetfish and Fourspot Butterfly fish.
Blackspot Sergeant, Lowfin Chub and Achilles Tang.
Lowfin Chub, Achilles Tang.
Lowfin Chub.
Trumpetfish and Tellow Tang.
Parrotfish.
The massive boat of tourists coming our way.

After we finished snorkeling, we headed back across the bay. We encountered more dolphins along the way showing off their spinning moves. After we had lunch, we went back to the hotel to shower, change and start making our way towards Mauna Kea. The Mauna Kea summit sits at 13,796 feet and houses University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy and Mauna Kea Observatories. The 13 telescopes are operated by astronomers from 11 different countries. It was an incredible sight to see.

We stopped at the Visitor Information Station (9,200 ft above sea level) to acclimate to the elevation before heading to the summit. After about an hour, we headed up to the summit to catch the sunset and check out the observatories. Unfortunately, it was pretty cloudy so we didn’t get to see the sunset, but the clouds were still beautiful.

Heading up to the summit.
Telescopes!
This guy was flying this remote controlled plane around. Pretty cool.
The sun setting. Which we cannot see (of course).
Cool clouds.
Pretty sky even though we couldn’t see the sunset.
Our attempt at taking pictures of stars. It did not work!

After that, we headed back down to do some star gazing. The Visitor Information Station sets up multiple telescopes for people to view things far, far away! It was awesome. The stars were absolutely breathtaking. I have never experienced anything like it! Once we finished viewing everything through the telescopes, we wandered through the gift shop and then headed over to a picnic table area, where it was pitch black, to better view the stars. As we were sitting there mesmerized, Josh said “So I have a question for you”. My response was, naturally, something along the lines of “Yeah, what’s up?”. To which he replied “Will you marry me?” as he got down off the bench onto one knee (in the dark). I was COMPLETELY shocked and surprised and uttered things such as “EXCUSE ME!?” and “ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!”. After I slightly recovered, I remembered to say “OF COURSE YES!!!!!!”. Since it was so dark, I couldn’t see the ring he had…he jokingly said “So I know it’s dark, but I promise it’s pretty”. It was an absolutely amazing and unexpected way to end the day! As I sit here writing this, I’m still in shock! We attempted to take a selfie picture of the two of us and, of course, cut half our faces off (typical). So that is our engagement picture…sitting in the dark with half our faces cut off and squinty eyes! Once we got back to the car, we took a much better one (below). Then I decided to call my mom and wake her up at 2:00 am her time to tell her the amazing news! We then made it back to civilization to find a place to eat dinner. Since it was so late, one of the only places open was “Humpy’s”. Yep, we celebrated our engagement at a restaurant called “Humpy’s”. Hilarious! All in all, I would say it was one successful day on The Big Island!

Engaged!!!

Engaged!!!

Shark’s Cove Beach Time

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This past week, we headed up to the North Shore of Oahu for some snorkeling at Shark’s Cove. Unfortunately, the waves were HUGE so we didn’t get too much snorkeling in. However, we had some great beach time and really enjoyed watching the amazing waves hit the rocks.

Big waves! Hard to imagine we were out there a few months ago.
My mom requested a selfie.
John watching the waves.
John and Jan walking up from snorkeling.
Jan putting her toes in the water!
Sisters admiring the ocean.
My mom. Love this shot!

Kauai: Trip 2 – Day 1

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This past weekend, Josh and I took our fourth trip to Kauai (which I believe we have 100% determined to be our favorite island). This time, we ventured there to take a boat tour of the Na Pali coast and to hike to Hanakapi’ai Falls.

Our Saturday morning started out bright and early as we had an hour drive to the boat harbor where we would be departing on our tour. We left at 7:00 a.m. and headed towards the Na Pali coast. Our guide told us that there had been a really large swell the past few days that made it impossible to go in the caves and snorkel as well as, made the boat ride an extremely rough one. We lucked out! We were able to do all of the above and had an amazing experience.

One of the things I was incredibly excited about was the chance that we would get to see Hawaiian spinner dolphins. I have wanted to see dolphins out in the open water since I’ve lived here, but hadn’t gotten to experience that yet. I definitely fixed that on this trip! We saw TONS of them on multiple occasions. Our first encounter provided us with a small pod that had a few babies in it. One of them was the size of a football and was so incredibly cute. They were on all sides of our boat and periodically jumped out of the water to spin. It was amazing!

You can see the tiny baby between the two bigger dolphins. So cute!
Right on the side of our boat. Amazing!
Another baby dolphin and the mom.
RIGHT in front of our boat.
We were surrounded by them.
Leading our boat. They also liked to surf on the wake behind us.
Showing off a little further out!
More showing off!

After getting to experience the dolphins, we continued on to the indescribable beauty of the cliffs of the Na Pali coast. To see it from this angle was, to put it mildly, absolutely stunning. Every time I see this landscape, I always think I’m prepared because I have seen it multiple times before…and I will no longer experience the awe of what I am taking in. However, it never disappoints. Every single time it nearly takes my breath away.

The privately owned island of Niihau.
You can see in the rocks where the earth cracked and then new lava filled in. Pretty amazing.
First glimpse of the cliffs.
Waterfall along the coast.
Kalalau beach. Much prettier than when we hiked to it.
Kalalau valley.
The absurd red hill that we had to claw our way up b/c it was a mudslide when we hiked it!
The scary part of the hike…crawler’s ledge. Looks much less scary on the boat.

After we made it down the whole coast, we turned around to head back. On our trip back, we got to venture inside the sea caves and get a little closer to the coast.

Sitting inside the first sea cave.
We went in one entrance and came out of another…we came out practically under this waterfall.
Sea cave. We went in one entrance and out of the other one.
Kalalau valley.
This part of the coast is called the cathedrals.
The entrance to the sea cave framing the waterfall.
This cave was open on the top. Years of erosion from the water hitting the top of the cave made it fall in.
The rock in the middle was the top of the sea cave at one point.

After touring the sea caves and taking more pictures of the coast, we were able to stop and snorkel for a little bit. Oddly enough, only Josh and I snorkeled out of the six people on our tour. It was a little rough, but there were some pretty big fish. Josh also got to see a HUGE sea turtle. I unfortunately got out about five minutes before he did and missed it! He got great footage of it though!

Na Pali Coast Snorkel

Needle fish.
The biggest turtle!

After having some snacks and drying off, we headed back to the harbor. On our way back we came across about five times as many dolphins as we had encountered in the beginning of our tour. They were jumping out of the water everywhere, surfing our wake and just swimming all around us.

I love that they just look like they are loving life!
So happy and so free!
Literally surrounded by them.

After seeing dolphins for the second time, we made it back to the harbor around noon. We were both pretty exhausted and starving. We made it back to our hotel and grabbed a bite to eat. After that, we took a ridiculously long nap (I had taken dramamine and was seasick and we were both exhausted from lack of sleep). We woke up, grabbed dinner at the restaurant we ate at after we hiked the Kalalau Trail last year and headed back to our hotel. We packed up our stuff and headed to bed in preparation for another early morning!

Lanai: Day 2

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On our second day there, we got up and had breakfast at our hotel before venturing out for some more off-roading. We had granola, fruit, coffee and orange juice.

Our breakfast at Hotel Lanai.

Our breakfast at Hotel Lanai.

After breakfast, we met Ben and Becca and headed to our first adventure of the day in the jeep…the Munro Trail. We were hesitant about this trail because the rental car company said it was closed to jeeps. However, after much research we established that it could be driven and that people did it all the time. It turned out to be the easiest off-roading adventure we had our entire time on the island. It also was the prettiest!

Looking into an offshoot of the Munro Trail.
The incredible views begin…
Josh and I.
Ben and Becca.
Becca and I in the back of the very dusty jeep. We were covered in red dirt.
The Munro Trail.
Random gate that we went through to check out the view.
Pretty awesome view from the jeep.
The Munro trail marker at the end.
Trees along the highway…Ben’s favorite thing.

After the Munro Trail, we headed back to Lanai City to grab some stuff for a picnic and headed toward Shipwreck Beach (Kaiolohia) on the northeast corner of Lanai. We sat on some rocks and enjoyed the views of the 1940s oil tanker that still sits on the reef today after being beached there for the past 70 years. We also were joined by numerous sea turtles hanging out in the water near us. Quite a surreal lunch!

The sign before Shipwreck Beach. I love this picture.
So awesome!
Becca making us lunch!
Enjoying lunch!
Love this one!

After having a peaceful lunch with the turtles, we headed to South Lanai to do some snorkeling along the beach at Hulopoe Bay. Ben had never been snorkeling, so it was a first for him (even though he’s scuba dived). We got some great video footage of our snorkel adventure!

Hulopoe Beach Snorkeling Video

The view of Hulopoe Beach on our way to Pu’u Pehe Rock.

After a couple hours of snorkeling, we hiked a short trail to the left to Pu’u Pehe (Sweetheart Rock). I was expecting it to be a cool iconic rock, but we turned the corner and were blown away by the how striking it was. There is a reason it is one of the most photographed places on Lanai. We walked to the top of the cliffs (where someone was actually proposing right as we got near the top). We had a great view of the small beaches down below. We could also see some of the bright yellow fish we had seen snorkeling earlier from all the way up there (about 100 feet).

Panoramic of Pu’u Pehe.
Small beach.
A long drop!
Looking back at the beaches.
Sea cliffs near Pu’u Pehe.

After climbing back down from viewing Pu’u Pehe, we packed up the jeep and headed back to Lanai City. We returned the jeep, showered and got ready for dinner at Lanai City Grille (which conveniently for us was located in our hotel). I had read nothing but great reviews and wanted to make sure we made a stop here on our trip. The restaurant did not disappoint! We all split entrees and they were still huge portions! It was a great last evening on our vacation :).

Josh and I’s appetizer: Crab Dip with Tortilla Chips.
Becca and Ben’s appetizer: Ahi Poke Tacos.
Pecan Crusted Fresh Mahi Mahi that Josh and I shared.
BBQ Baby Back Ribs that Becca and Ben shared.
Dessert! LCG Bread Pudding.

Shark’s Cove

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Today, we went out for our second round of snorkeling at Shark’s Cove on the North Shore. Neither Josh nor I had been snorkeling here, so we were excited to go and check it out. From everything we had heard, it was a million times better than Hanauma Bay. It definitely did NOT disappoint! We saw tons of beautiful fish and coral and got to swim with a sea turtle. It was significantly less crowded than Hanauma Bay as well, so we basically had the area we were snorkeling in to ourselves. Plus, I continued to conquer my fear of the ocean :). I compiled all of our video footage into one video (it’s long but great footage of the turtle!).

Shark’s Cove