While in Hawaii on the island of Oahu, we went to a place called The Pupukea Maine Conservation District.
Within that area, there are a few places that you can snorkel.
We initially tried to go to Waimea Bay, because we had heard good things. However, there was no parking.
Instead, we followed the road a little farther, and parked in front of the Kalua O Maua, or “The Three Tables.”
I was really glad that we ended up where we did, because we saw so many green sea turtles!
Turtles are one of my favorite animals, and I adore sea turtles. There is one back home in Guam that I love to go visit.
You do have to be careful. The waves are strong, and it would be easy to get pushed into one of the “three tables” (which are just big pillars of volcanic rock.)
They aren’t sharp, but they are full of baby sea urchins, so you wouldn’t want to touch the rocks.
However, as long as you are careful, there are a lot of really beautiful things to see. There are some flat corals, and lots of fish.
The turtles looked a little worse for wear. Quite a few of them had shell of flipper damage.
However, they were reasonably calm around us. We didn’t get too close (obviously) because of the restrictions in the endangered species act.
Seeing them from a distance and being able to zoom in and get video was pretty magical, though.
The waves were high, but the water seemed calmer than on the other side of the island.
There were certainly more people swimming, and we didn’t see any dramatic rescues of screaming people like at Electric Beach.
JD's Blog 