2010-3-3 Tunnels snorkeling finally!

On the 13th day of our vacation, the forecast actually said it was suppose to be warmer and a little less windy on the north side. Surf wasn't in the advisory levels

north, but were still listed as somewhere around 12 '. Rain was in the forecast for all over the island. Surf on the east side was around 5' again and very windy. South was 1-3' and windy. Seeing as this was really our last chance to go north this trip, we decided to head north anyway. I had already resigned myself to the fact that there probably wouldn't be any snorkeling, but hoped to get a few pictures. We had planned to meet the "kids" at Hanalei Dolphin at 7. They, too, ended up going north, but left 2 or 3 hours before us. They pretty much ended up heading to the same spots we did, but with totally different results.
 BUt first---time to gas up again. 

 Then we were off to Tunnels.
By the time we got to Tunnels, the sun was shining, the surf was calm and there was very little wind. The kids had been there a couple hours earlier when the surf was pounding. I was surprised just a couple hours could make such a difference! Here's what it looked like when we were there.

Just in case, we came prepared and headed in! 

 we got there around low tide.

 looked like a great day for snorkeling there.

Glad we came prepared to snorkel!

 blue stripe butterflyfish

 male Christmas wrasse

 saddle wrasse heading into the drop off.

 the edge of the inner reef

 threadfin butterflyfish

 tear drop butterflyfish

 a very emancipated christmas wrasse.

 close up of the endemic blue stripe butterflyfish

 coronet fish heading into the deep

 4 spot butterflyfish

 looking over the drop off.

 female surge wrasse

 white bar surgeonfish

 brown surgeonfish

 threadfin butterflyfish

 topography of the inner reef.  Too bad the corral is getting beaten up by all the snorkelers who stand on them.

 butterflyfish

 the emancipated wrasse, again.

AFter an hour or so, the skies clouded over and it started to rain, but since this was the first rain we've seen in 13 days, I'm not complaining. We packed up our stuff and moved up under the trees. Ken was ready to go and I was happy to have had the chance to snorkel Tunnels, so we left. First had to get one last picture of the Bali Hai mountains for this trip.

 We made it to Hanalei Dolphin for dinner that night. Not a cheap place, but service was very good. My fish dinner was very good, but more spendy then I remembered. Faith had sushi which she said was only so so; the guys had fish and chips which they seemed to enjoy, but they didn't seem to think it was anything special considering the price. But the company was great! In fact, they even treated us tonight. At about $40/person, that was quite a treat!

Back at the resort, it was time to warm up in the jacuzzi as it rained some more.

And lastly---time for some lilikoi pie that we had bought from Hamura Saimon Noodle restaurant in Lihue a couple days before.

So glad we got to go to Tunnels.  Will have to get here sometime in the summer when the North shore is suppose to be calm most of the time!