2010-2-21 snorkeling Poipu

It was time to hit the water!  With the surf being up on the North shore, we headed south. 
But first---breakfast at one of our favorite breakfast places---Kountry Kitchen in Kapaa.

Then a stop in Koloa to check out the sugar cane workers memorial

 It is an interesting sculpture with lots of info about the sugar plantation days. Here's a close up of a couple of the figures within the monument.

We had heard there was a return of the Poipu beach tombula (sandy area leading to the island), so we were anxious to check that out, too.

I was also anxious to snorkel and try out my new Canon D10 underwater digital camera. I was very pleased with the results. 
juvenile yellow tail coris

 adult male yellow tail coris wrasse

Ken snorkeling towards the Sheraton

 juvenile yellow bar surgeonfish

 adolescent yellow bar surgeon fish

 and the adult yellow bar surgeon fish.  It's interesting how big a transformation many fish make.
Racoon butterflyfish

moorish idol

view of Poipu to the left of the tombola.  Most people don't snorkel here because it's so shallow, but I find it's a great place to get close up photos of fish.  And there are a lot of them here!

view of Poipu to the right.

 We eventually got hungry so went over to Bubba Burgers in Poipu.  It may be a little kitschy, but I like it.

Then it was on to Lawai for some more snorkeling.
This is the only place around Kauai that I've seen black triggerfish.

lots of schools of fish here, like these convict tangs

 for awhile it looked like we might get some rain

 but it cleared up nicely

 There are some pretty nice coral heads here at Lawai

 Ken snorkeling in front of Beach House Restaurant.

 we almost always see turtles here.  This gal didn't look like she was doing too well.

 There are lots of large parrotfish here, too.

 a school of saddle wrasses.

 another kind of wrasse and some surgeon fish.

 The welcome crew---school of racoon butterfly fish.

For sunset, we headed to the small boat harbor just past Lawai.

 It was a pretty nice sunset to cap off a great day!