My Pacific Northwest: Golf and Snorkeling 2-22-13

Yesterday we enjoyed 18 holes of golf at the beautiful Makalei Golf Course.

I have been told that Makalei means peacock, and there were beautiful peacocks and peahens all over this course. They were definitely looking for a handout, but didn't get one from us. M&M's and beer aren't good peacock diet.

There were also a lot of these birds that laughed like maniacs at our swings. I had to look this up, and turns out it is called the Erckel's Francolin and was introduced from Africa in the 1950's.

I was also really happy to see a strikingly handsome pair of kalij pheasants.

Today Dave and I got up early to catch a boat for a morning of snorkel adventuring! We were met at the dock by this cute little guy!

We went with a smaller boat with Sea Quest because I read in my Hawaii Revealed guide that they had great info about what we would be seeing and would poke into sea caves on the way. We were not disappointed. The Captain, Joe and Mate, Rich, were great. Joe told us some marine biology, history, and geology- both informative and with a sense of humor.
We got to see a couple humpbacks and baby humpback as well. I only brought my underwater cam, so this is a but fuzzy. The other snorkel boat ended up getting a closer look as the whales moved that way.

It was still cloudy and gray at our first snorkel spot, in the bay that the City of Refuge was located on. It was cool to snorkel where we had just been on the land a few days before, although the depth kept everything a bit out of camera shot. Dave got some of me diving down under.

I got a few of a moray eel of some type. He was pretty big, maybe 4 ft long and fierce looking.

Here is one of the sea caves we poked into. This one was cut way back and will eventually be a cleft in the cliff. I don't think the person who is building the multi-million dollar mansion on top of it realizes that.

The next place we went to was Kealakekua Bay, where there is a memorial to Captain Cook.

I also saw a lot of cool fish here. Finally I got a shot of one fish I had wanted to see, the Achilles Tang:

Here is a longnose butterfly fish with some yellow tangs:

I think the black durgeon triggerfish has become my favorite tropical fish. Humuhumu ele-ele in Hawaiian, this is a graceful fish, despite its unusual fin placement. Here is a group I saw while looking out over the deep blue of the bay and then this other guy swam up to me and tipped this way and that, very slowly and confidently showing me the beautiful pattern on his head I had not noticed before.