March 1, 2012: Tunnels, again

The weather forecast wasn't too promising for today, either, but I was pleasantly surprised when I looked outside and saw shadows!

 No McDonald's today.  Instead we had breakfast in our condo----eggs, toasts, and spam.  Yep, we actually like Spam!  After breakfast, I spent a little time on the internet checking out the forecasts again.  The surf was suppose to be even lower then yesterday up north, so even though I had planned on spending our last 2 days south, we headed north one last time.

On our way north, we stopped at Banana Joe's for a smoothie.  I was disappointed that they were out of them and it wasn't even noon.  This is the 2nd time we've stopped and they've been out. 

 While we were there, I went over and checked out the putt-putt golf course landscaping.  It has matured a lot since last year!  It looks great.  I was happy to see quite a few people there playing miniature golf.  I hope it does really well.

 We've been marvelling at these flat-topped trees that we've been seeing all over the place.  I wonder what they are.  (was told they're fast growing weak Albizia trees.) These ones are behind the putt putt course.

 As we were about to leave, I noticed this bunch of bananas growing in the putt putt area.  Hope they don't go to waste.

 In the early afternoon we finally reached tunnels.  It wasn't suppose to be low tide for about 3 more hours, but it sure was low already! 

 It was also very calm.  More like a lake then an ocean!  And the sun was even shining!  Weather.com was wrong again!---this time in a good way.

 We snorkeled Tunnels for almost 4 hours.  It was a very busy day there.  There were so many people swimming in the deep water that I even ventured out there a lot more.  It was another great day for snorkeling the north shore!

 Look closely at the reddish blob in the crevis---it is an octopus!  This was 1 of the 2 I saw here today!  I've seen them a couple times in the past, but have never been able to get a picture.  The other octopus I saw today was actually swimming in deep water.  I got a picture of it, but it was too far away to be very clear. 

 Here is a pair of whitesaddle goatfish.  Now I've seen them at Anini, Lydgate and Tunnels.

 Here's another guy I didn't have a picture of until now---short body blenny?

 Hard to see here, but there were schools of tiny fish with blue heads and yellow bodies.  I thought they might be young cleaner wrasses, but they have yellow heads and blue bodies. 

 This trevelley followed me for quite a distance. 

 Also in the deep water was this eel.  I'm surprised photo editing made it this clear!

 Another new critter.  I assume it's a type of bleney.  (wrong, it's an arc eye hawkfish)

 And this one.  Don't recall seeing it before, either  (juvenile saddle wrasse?).

 Did find my triggerfish buddy again and found there are actually at least 3 of them here.

About 4, the clouds started rolling in and we thought we might be rained on, so we packed up and headed to Wyndham Bali Hai to sit in the jacuzzi a bit, then change.  Then we continued on our way back to the east side.   Although it's at least an hour drive to the end of the road from our Wyndham on the East side, the ride doesn't seem bad with all the beautiful views---such as this one.

 And this one.  I have hundreds more, too.

 Being Thursday, it was Brick Oven Pizza buffet night, so we got our last fix of Brick Oven for this trip. 

 Did I mention I LOVE palm trees?!  don't see any of them in St. Louis---except for the fake ones by Hooters!

 We were done eatting before sunset, so we stopped at Lydgate park on our way to our resort.  OK, I added some color to the shot, but mother nature's been a bit disappointing in the sunset department lately!

Hard to believe we only have 24 hours left!  Maybe not the perfect tropical paradise vacation, but not far from it!  Tomorrow we'll definately spend one last day south.