Snorkeling with Spinner Dolphins

Diving deep, they can move sooo fast

Spinner dolphin jumping

Spinner dolphins playing

Monument to CAPT Cook, this is where he was killed around 1778

Snorkeling at CAPT Cook area

Snorkeling with dolphins

Beautiful! Note snorkeler above the animals

More dolphins

Earlier this week we took a small zodiac boat again out to snorkel with dolphins off Kona.  We had done this before but only saw the dolphins from a long distance.  This day we got lucky and actually snorkeled while a pod played around us.  We could hear the dolphins talking which was pretty cool.  Hawaii has a mixture of many dolphins and we were in the water with Bottle Nose (Flipper) and Spinner Dolphins.  The Spinner’s can do flips out of the water to include spinning as they fall.  We were told they can do up to about 8 revolutions and did see some 4-6 revolutions,  pretty impressive.  It was almost like the dolphins were showing off for our applause, which they received.  The dolphins hunt at night and sleep during the day.  They are able to turn off one side of their brain which disables vision on one side as they “sleep”.  Apparently, most of these dolphins were awake.

Being in the water with these graceful creatures was the coolest thing I have experienced here.  They seem not afraid of people and appear curious.  One dolphin actually looked up at us from below, while he swam on his back!  We also saw a young dolphin copying all the swim moves of an adult.  It was pretty neat!

Kaua’i National Wildlife Refuge and Waikiki Beach

Beautiful Kilauea site

Lighthouse

Many birds live here

Humpback whale dive

Bird sanctuary

One of the coolest things we saw on Kauai was the National Wildlife Refuge which is located at the lighthouse at Kilauea.  The lighthouse sits about 400 ft above the surf overlooking the ocean and cliffs with numerous bird habitats.  We saw Red Footed Boobies, Red Tailed Topic birds, Frigate birds, Albatross and several others.  Personally, I love birds!  I really appreciate there majestic flight and beauty.  Maybe that is a sign of getting older, but I’m not sure and don’t care.  I love to watch them in flight and appreciate their struggle for living.  From that high vantage point we were also able to see about 8 – 10 humpback whales including a group of four that were very close to shore.  The place cost $5.00/each to enter and is well worth it.  I am not sure why I never visited it on other Kauai trips. Glad I found it this time as it was a favorite site of Jane and I. After Kauai we toured Honolulu for 2 days and had some fun shopping in Waikiki Beach.  We enjoyed some great food and snorkeled in Hananama Bay which is really over rated compared to the snorkeling in the Kona area.  Honolulu is a big city with a lot of traffic, we were happy to get back to our sleepy Kona!  Aloha and enjoy the pics!!

KAUAI

This week we returned to the garden island, Kauai.  We were married here

Our wedding place near Princeville Kauai 5 yrs ago

Wedding place today

Jane strapping in

No I am not the pilot today

Beautiful!

Jane and pilot

Na Pali coast

Kauai from the air

One of a million waterfalls

Tunnels snorkel area Kauai

Sea meets land

Jane and Joe after the flight

5 years ago and at that time we vowed to return on our 5th year anniversary.  So here we are and to celebrate we took a helicopter trip around the island.  What a great way to see this beautiful place, we both loved it and felt it was one of the most exciting things we have ever done and highly recommend it.  Nothing we can say that the pics don’t show.  Enjoy!

VISIT WITH JANE’S FRIEND CAMILLE

Great sunset

Sunset at the Old Airport

Jane and Camille waiting for sunset

Camille and banyan tree

Picnic

Camille and turtle friends

Not sure?

Jane and Banyan tree

I can spell my name

Rough ride back on the snorkel boat trip. Winds picked up to 30 mph

Jane and Camille snorkeling

Dolphins swimming below us

Dolphins

Jane and Joe

Our boat

More dolphins

Camille

Camille and Jane at sunset

Camille and Racoon butterfly fish buddy

Holualoa art gallery

Holualoa out house with a view

Whenever we have visitors, it really puts us into the Hawaiian vacation mode.  It breaks us out of the day to day routine and encourages us to do some extra fun things.  In reality, it does not take much encouragement as there are many fun things to do here.  Jane’s friend Camille came for a week and during that time we were able to do some snorkeling, sightseeing and then finally a boat snorkel trip where we were lucky to see numerous dolphins and even swam with them below us.  All in all it was a great time and I think Camille came away, as most do, loving this special island.  Enjoy the photos!

Rainy side of the Island and Volcano

Botanical garden plants hanging ginger

Joe and Donna at the Botanical garden

Torch Ginger

Glow from the volcano

Pele, goddess of the volcano

Jane and rainbow

Indonesian ginger

Wild orchids

Not sure of the name

Akaka Falls -600ft drop

Wild anthurium around the Volcano Inn

Jane, Joe and Donna at Akaka Falls

Volcano Inn – very artsy

Last week Jane, my sister Donna and I ventured with to the eastern side or wet side of the Island.  For comparison Kona (west side) gets 10 inches of rain annually, Hilo 129 inches annually.  We did have some rain but got lucky and were able to tour one of Donna’s favorite things, the Botanical Garden, during sunny weather.  Later we drove to Akaka falls, a beautiful waterfall that drops 600 feet to a pool.  We timed it good and just got back to the car when the rain let loose!

That night we spent the evening in the tiny town of Volcano and checked out Volcano National Park (VNP) in some heavy wind and rain.  We did get to witness a full 180 degree rainbow, beautiful, but no pot of gold.  Donna is a big quilter and there was a very cool quilt shop in Volcano that had a lot of Hawaiian patterns and materials.  So, it was a very nice trip although a long drive.   If you do a tour they will do the whole trip in one day but it is more enjoyable if you can stop overnight near the VNP and see the volcano glow at night which we did.  The other advantage in doing an overnight trip is that the weather is pretty wild and changeable at the VNP and we have found the mornings are often sunny.   The next morning we were greeted by a sunny day and a lot of birds enjoying the sunshine.  Enjoy the photos!

Picnic and some nice pics

Today we toured a coffee farm and then went to the Area of Refuge (Pu’uhonau O Hon

OK, who are the crazy ones?

Donna making her mark

Reading about the painted church

Pointed church

Jane at lava tube

Donna in front of a lava tube

Wild orchids

Not everything knows how to grow correctly here

Kona coffee beans drying

Beautiful orchid

aunau)  which is a national historic park and enjoyed a picnic.  We got some good pics of the interesting vegetation.

My sister Donna’s visit to Hawaii

My sister Donna is now here in Hawaii visiting us.  We have had a great time snorkeling x2 at Kahalu’u Beach and today we had a whale watching trip.  That was really cool, we saw several humpback whales and even got a pic of a whale breaching.  We were also able to hear the whales singing  due to a microphone dropped into the water.  That was very interesting!  Enjoy the photos!

Whale tail

Whale tale again

Whale spout

Hump back dive

Jane looking for whales

Nice whale tail dive

Note the color on the tail

Whale tail dive

OK, I really did get this photo!!

Donna’s arrival

Donna looking for a good sunset

Joe and Donna snorkeling

Kona update

Crazy squid, first we have seen. It was about 15 inches long

Shaka, shaka Jane

Snowflake eel

Snowflake eel

This turtle almost ran over us!

Inside the Painted Church. Circa 1902

This is called the Painted church near the Zone of Refuge.

It is raining in Kona.  That is pretty unusual as it only rains about 10 inches a year here.  The windward side of the Island (Hilo) gets much more, something like 80 inches.  I like the dry but enjoy the occasional rain.  It really smells good and reminds me of my youth in the Arizona desert during a rain.

We had a great snorkel day today at Kahaluu or snorkel beach.  There were some strong currents but the water was very clear as usual.  While looking at a hiding eel we were almost run over by a young turtle.  We followed him or her awhile and took some pics.  Jane got a great video.  They are so graceful and beautiful to watch swim.  Then Jane saw a snowflake eel out of the rocks.  All in all a great snorkel day!!  A couple of days ago we also saw a squid, the first one here.  We also went to the “Painted Church”  this was from around 1902 and was a Maryknoll mission.  Beautiful setting and interesting place.

Volcano National Park

Amazing color

Hawaiian lawn mower

Volcano town art work

Pretty and clever

Nice art piece in Volcano

State bird called Ne Ne, pronounce Nay, Nay

Lava tube

Entrance to the Lava tube

Glow from volcano crater

Volcano crater at night

We decided to take a trip through Hilo and then over to the Volcano National Park (VNP).  The military has cottages at VNP which were available and we stayed two nights.  The military facility has a pretty good cafeteria and the last two nights there were kids from a 6th grade class on Oahu having a great field trip and staying at the military facility.  They were actually pretty well behaved and we enjoying watching them.   My grade school never had that good of a field trip, come think of it we never did ANY field trip!

The VNP is only 40 min from Hilo on the south-east side (wet side) of the Island.   It is the only tropical rain forest in the United States.  The elevation is about 6000 ft so it was a cool 55 to 65 degrees and wet.  The area gets over 100 inches of rain per year contrasted with Kona that gets less than 10!  Currently there are not any lava flows that you can see but there is a large volcanic cauldron that gives off a nightly glow.  Also, you can hear it boiling and popping, but can only get within about 0.5 miles of it.  Pretty neat none the less.  I hope you enjoy the photos of the glow.

We also walked through a lava tube that is about 200 yd long.  Years ago lava flowed in this tube and the hottest moved through the middle while the cooler lava made a tunnel.  The hottest lava eventually drained leaving a  tube which is about 25 feet in diameter.  Pretty impressive!  We really enjoyed listening to the birds in the rain forest surrounding the lava tube.  Jane and I really love wild birds and probably could be ornithologists in our next careers, but we are running out of time, so no more college degrees.

In the area is the town of Volcano which is an artsy little town with some very talented people.  Think hippies that have dropped out but have some serous talent.  Anyway, the place we visited had a goat, and some beautiful plants as well as some pretty nice artwork.

Finally, we returned home and decided to walk down to see the sunset.  Unfortunately, the sunset was not too good but instead a humpback whale decided to put on a show, jumping and splashing.  That is the really cool thing about Hawaii, you never know what you will see.

On Hawaii yesterday there was a guy in a single outrigger canoe when a whale collided with it, breaking it in half.  He was pretty shocked but was OK.  There were three encounters with whales this week on the islands.  No one got hurt, but some were amazed at the close whale encounters!    Aloha!

BIG WAVES AND WHALES

Oh Yea!

Boogie boarding

Last week all the islands had very large waves, in some cases 20 footers such as on the north shore of Oahu.  The Big Island here had some 8 – 12 footers which were impressive, especially when they spit surf board 15 feet into the air.  In Kauai, two men were on the rocks when a waves swept one away.  The other jumped in to help but he too lost his life.  Sad, but it just goes to show you have to have utmost respect for the force of the ocean, especially in Hawaii.  FYI,  Hawaii has more drownings then any other state.  The water is powerful here!

Today we went back to Kekala Kai park and boogie boarded.  The waves were only 3-6 feet but in Hawaii the waves pack a punch.  After about a half hour and a few rides, Jane and I called it quits.  Unlike the Atlantic ocean, the waves here keep pushing even after they break.  In fact after one ride I was lucky to keep my swim suit on.  It was a fun day!