laurajenkinson

Something you Should Have on your Bucket List

Tuesday May 13th, 2014 – Hawaii Island, United States of America

This morning we had a sleep in, as we’d been up so early the last few days. Woke up to lots of sun, so we went to the pool for a few hours – played some volleyball, went down the slide etc. After that we thought we should go into Kona town for a bit of a look. Craig is getting pretty good at driving around here… It’s harder than you’d think when you don’t really know the give-way rules etc – I definitely recommend that liability insurance.

Kona was pretty cute! The buildings are mostly wood.. It reminds me of a tropical Arrowtown.
We did a super touristy thing and went to Bubba Gump for lunch. It may be touristy but damn that food is good! Nice wee spot on the water too. We also went to Walmart to see if we could find an underwater camera. Walmart is just like K Mart, but with a McDonalds and a supermarket inside

Life is like a box of chocolates  Best thing ever!

We got the camera, and I bought a Cosmo mag (which was $3!!!!).

We had a quick late afternoon nap, and then got picked up for our Manta Ray snorkel at 7.10pm.
A man on a little golf buggy came to take us down to the dock, which is not very far from the hotel. We were given a wetsuit for our top half, flippers, a snorkel, and a noodle (used horizontally under your waist to keep you as still as possible). The boat we were going out on is called a Kini Kini, which is canoe with a sail and can only take a max of 6 passengers – there was just the four of us, which was pretty special. The crew consisted of the guide (who looked and sounded just like Ryan Gosling), another guy sailing the canoe, and two 15 year old girls who are in a special programme which teaches kids about sailing, the water and sealife (some of the money we paid goes towards this). The girls were very confident, knowledgable and helpful (though they didn’t really ease my mind when I said “are there sharks out here?” and they responded “well, my Dad always says, if it is salty there are sharks”).

Once we anchored at our spot, the crew threw out a surfboard which had handles around the edge and lights underneath. Then it was our turn to get off the boat by just jumping over the side. Once we all had our handle on the surfboard and our noodle in place, we could look below us. At first there was just one (which is still amazing as they are an average of 6-7ft wide) doing it’s special feeding dance for us…flipping around in circles with its huge mouth open to get all the plankton. It would get so close that, although you aren’t allowed to touch them, it would belly rub you.
Eventually there were five of them flipping around each other (but not touching) and coming super close to us. One weirdly had a funny looking fish stuck to its belly slits (gills??), and it was getting pretty close to me – I was quite worried the fish would touch me (it looked gross), but luckily it didn’t.

After 45 mins of this amazing experience, it was time to head back (it got pretty cold) and the crew had hot chocolate waiting for us. Such an amazing experience, I cannot stress how much I recommend you do this if you come to Big Island… It is the stuff bucket lists are made of. I hope we got some good pics!

Until tomorrow, Aloha! Xx

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