This morning we hired snorkel gear from Annie, and got directions to the trailhead of the hike down to Captain Cook’s monument. The instructions were quite interesting; walk along highway 11, turn makai (seaward) onto Napo’opo’o Road, and then look for the spray painted arrow on the 3rd telephone pole on the right.
We found it with no problems…the white painted sign on the pavement was a big give away though!
We headed off down the trail, which at first felt like jungle trekking as we fought our way through the tall grass.
The hike took us on a gradual slope down to the coast, firstly through farmlands, and then emerging out onto an old lava field.
At the bottom we emerged into the beautiful Kealakekua Bay, where Cook’s monument stood proudly on the shoreline.
Captain James Cook accidentally ‘discovered’ the islands in 1778 whilst on route to try and discover the north west passage. He landed in Waimea Bay on the island of Kaua’i and received a warm welcome from the locals. He returned to the islands in February 1779, and anchored here in Kealakekua Bay. Whilst here he repaired his two ships and took on supplies, however, things went sour when he tried to take the local chief hostage in retaliation for a stolen boat. The battle that commenced claimed the lives of Cook and four of his crew.
After following in Cook’s footsteps for well over half of our 10 month trip, it felt sad to finally arrive at his final resting place.
No time for tears though, as we had some snorkelling to do…on with the gear and off we went into the calm waters of Ka’awaloa Cove, reputedly the best spot on the island for coral and marine life.
To introduce you all to a couple of the fish we met…above is a black durgon triggerfish, and below are a shoal of yellow tang feeding on the coral.
After an hour exploring the underwater world we jumped out, trying to avoid treading on the deadly urchins, and started the tough climb back up the hill side.
Once back at the hostel we refuelled with a filling lunch, and then drove to Honokohau Harbour, meeting up with a local dive company for a 2 tank dive.
We met Captain Mike who would be in charge of the afternoons dives and headed out to our first location at Nai’a Bay. After getting kitted up we jumped in and made our descent to 28 metres, meeting Mike at the bottom for a tour of the dive site.
It was a fantastic site, with some real hidden gems…below are photos of what we saw (downloaded from the internet, as our camera is not pressure proof at 28 metres).
A moray eel, being cleaned by a cleaner shrimp (below left)…next stop Ben put his hand into a cleaner shrimp ‘station’ for a manicure, as they cleaned his nails! We were told up on the boat before we jumped in that you could also remove your regulator (breathing mouth piece) and open your mouth for them to climb in and clean your teeth…we said “no thank you'” to that!
We then swam through a ‘field’ of garden eels, who all disappeared in their holes as we glided over, and re-appeared once we had gone.
It was then that we looked up above us and saw a pod of bottlenose dolphins swimming overhead. As we rolled onto our backs and swam looking up at the surface, their silhouettes were beautiful.
For us though the real highlight was Mike finding an octopus.
This in itself was great, however, he then picked it up and it started to give off a defensive ink. What happened next made Nicola scream (although obviously no one heard her under water)…Mike put the octopus on her hand, and then onto Ben’s hand. The ‘sucker’ sensation was weird, and the skin was very slimy…urgh! But, things weren’t over…he then put the octopus on his bald head…the below picture is off their website from a previous dive, but gives you an idea of what this all looked like!!
What an amazing dive…but the best dive was yet to come! We started our journey along the coast to our next dive site.
We climbed along the side of the boat and sat on the bow watching the stunning sunset, and Mike’s dog Scout run laps around the boat.
We arrived at the dive site in darkness, after our briefing of the site we got kitted up and jumped in with our trusty torches. We descended to 10 metres and met our dive master at the bottom, following him to the manta ray location.
We had all been instructed to shine our torch lights towards the surface, holding them above our heads whilst sitting on the sea floor. The intense light would then attract the plankton which the manta ray feed on.
The below pictures are sadly not our own, but ones that we have found of the same dive on the internet…it will give you an idea though of what this experience was like.
The manta rays when they first appeared were ghost like, gliding into view gracefully and passing within inches of our heads as they swept in to feast on the plankton.
They moved with such grace; even as more and more turned up they never interfered with one another, merely sweeping their bodies out of the way as they met.
We felt so lucky being able to watch this beautiful manta ray ballet…we were both also lucky enough to feel the power of their wings, as they brushed our heads.
You can see from the above photo, how they open their mouths, and you can see straight in as they pass over the top of you. With wing spans of up to 12 ft they were true giants of the marine world.
The below video is not our own, but one of many from the manta dive that is on You Tube…we hope you enjoy watching it as much as we did diving it!
Just before we left the site a friendly (but ugly) moray eel decided to rap itself around Nicola’s arm….once again – urgh!
Back on the boat heading back to the harbour we tried to take in the amazing spectacle that we were lucky enough to witness – a true ‘wow’ moment of the trip!
No comments:
Post a Comment