Hawaii Snorkeling Pics (PHOTO INTENSE)

[seanoman]

Sorry about the delay in getting these posted, but I finally found some time to post these. These pics are from snorkeling at Hanauma Bay and up the west coast of Oahu.


Hope You Enjoy!!

These are Hanuama Bay









These are from another snorkeling trip

[dsaundry]

very Purdy

[seanoman]

It was absolutely unreal to see these fish in there natural environments and to see the size of them up close.

[Canuckgod420]

Great pics!!
1 question though....why,(in those first few shots) is there NO life on those rocks at all....not even algae.
I've never been any where tropical...is this a normal thing? I mean you would assume that there would be something growing....wouldnt you?

[04scoobysti]

I've been to Hanauma Bay a couple times, and there is very little life left on the shallow reef part. People who put their hands all over the reef and stand on it are the reason for this. Hanauma bay is great once you swim out to where its about 30ft. Lots of sea turtles and more to see, just have to careful of the current, it can pull you out to sea pretty quickly . Great pics!

[Delphinus]

Great pics. The butterflies are amazing

Canuck, it's normal for Hawaii actually. Hawaii is really at the northern edge of the southern Pacific and although there are reefs in Hawaiian waters, the real selling point is the fish. The water is in fact considered too cold for serious reef formation. There are spots where you will see coral formations but it's nothing like further south.

Ground Zero for Pacific reefs is basically Papua New Guinea. The further away you get from PNG, the less overall diversity you'll find. Don't get me wrong I'm not saying that reefs outside of PNG are somehow "less". Every reef is amazing but if you want to see some serious "holy crap!!!!!" type reefs you need to go to Indo, GBR/Australia, PNG, Palau, Fiji, .. maybe Thailand and then upwards to Philippines.

Or so I've been told. I haven't yet tested this theory out for myself ... but I plan to.

[Snappy]

There are some nice reef dives with lots of sps around Kona.

[Diana]

Nice pics! I love Hawaii, just seeing those underwater pics makes me nostalgic. The best part of Haunauma is definately getting out past where the waves break (the hard part to swim through), then you get 30-some odd feet deep with the giant red pencil urchins and some okay coral. Lotsa turtles and big parrotfish.... the shallow part is neat but the deep is the way to go! Even right off waikiki we saw some pretty awesome stuff, not too much coral though. We saw some wicked colored coral up on the north shore, but the big waves there in the winter limit most corals to the encrusting kind.

Cool school of butterflies, we didnt see too many of them.

The best coral growth I've personally seen was in the Cook Islands, but even then it isnt nessecarily well known for its coral. I can't wait to get to Raja Ampat. One day.... *dreams*


-Diana

[Myka]

Them Parrotfish are good for eating!!! Reminds me of the Cook Islands, which had really nice reefs back in 98 when I was there.

[Canuckgod420]

Thanks for the info guys....I knew there where great numbers of fish....just thought there would be more life on the rocks.
Fiji is where the wife and I want to go.