Feb. 3, 2014 : Anini turtle convention; spectacular sunset

When we got up this morning, I was a bit disappointed.  No more bright blue skies!  It was totally overcast, but I reminded myself I was still in Kauai so how bad could it be.  With that, we ate breakfast in the condo, then headed out for our last day on Kauai 2014.  The surf was still up on the north shore, so we decided to check out the reef protected Anini beach.  I was actually shocked at how still the water was.  It was lightly raining then, but I was getting one more snorkel in!  Ken elected to sit on the beach and chat with everyone around.  Instead of entering where I usually do, I walked in from the boat ramp.  Immediately I was met with a large school of yellow stripe goatfish.

Just after that I saw a turtle eating the short grass in the area.

Then another one!

I saw a few fish here and there--a flounder and goatfish, but nothing like by the rocky area, so I made a right and headed that way.  As soon as I got to the edge of the rocks, I was met by 5 more turtles!!  If you look closely you'll see 3 in this picture.  The other 2 were behind me.

Continuing on, I came across another one!

I've never seen this many turtles in such a small area.  I don't know if it's always like this and I should have been taking this route all the time or if they were having a convention!?  But it was super calm and no wind.  My husband said everyone on shore were amazed at how many turtle heads they were seeing pop up everywhere.  I know I saw at least 10 different turtles, at that point I quit counting.
Sooooo Calm!

I proceeded to the area we normally snorkel and looked for fish I haven't photographed yet this trip.  Here's a juvenile saddle wrasse.  It sure doesn't look anything like it's adult!

 an adut saddle wrasse

 Another white mouth moray eel

 a blue stripe snapper

 A variety of fishies

 Last time here we saw grayish cigar wrasses--they are males.  This time I saw a yellow one---it's a female.

Gotta include this turtle---it was interesting watching him walking along  on it's flippers.

 As I was heading back to the boat ramp, I came upon 2 large coral heads next to each other.  I didn't even see it on my way out!  It had a lot of really cool fish and an eel around it.  Even one of the elusive yellow tangs.

 These guys are normally hard to get a good picture of.  They usually hide.  The ones around this coral were more curious and easier to catch on camera.  Spotfin squirrel fish.

 Theses Hawaiian Dascyllus are pretty territorial.  They were all over these 2 corals and joined up to "scare" off intruders.  I even noticed they can make a rattling noise!  I kept hearing it and started watch them closely.  Somehow they make a funny rattling noise while shaking their bodies.  I tried to record it, but don't know if I was successful yet.  They definitely are not shy.

This one was more elusive, but I think it's a Hawaiian squirrel fish.

This is a soldier fish

The larger of the 2 corals

 yup---another eel.  Lots of eels and turtles at Anini.

 I love Cardinals so couldn't go without including a picture of some Hawaiian Cardinals.

We sat and admired Anini for awhile more. 

Ken even fed the birds for a while.

 We left Anini after about 4 or 5 hours and headed to one of the pools and jacuzzi at our resort.

 About 6 we decided to head out in search of dinner.  It was pretty heavily clouded still, but we decided to give sunset another chance before finding a restaurant.  I'm really glad we did, too.  This is what a sunset should be!!!  It was unbelievably gorgeous.  I stood there for 40 minutes watching the clouds change colors.

Even this Nene mom and her ducklings enjoyed it.

 The sky looked like it was on fire!

  And it changed colors a few times.   What a beautiful way to end our vacation!!!

We actually drove into Kapaa to find dinner.  We went to Olympic Cafe and had another great meal there.  I had the fish tacos (excellent, although i had to eat them with a knife and fork because they were so sloppy) and Ken had the fish and chips.