Lawai:

 About 13 miles from Salt Pond is Lawai Beach.  It is located across from the Lawai Beach Resort and adjacent to the Beach House Restaurant.  This is usually a great place to snorkel in the winter.  Shown here is Lawai Beach Resort across the street.  The Beach House Restaurant is behind me.

There's not much of a beach or shade here, but I've never seen it packed full of people.

With the Beach House Restaurant right next door, a lot of people will sit on it's lawn under palm trees and soak in the views.  Here's a view towards the Beach House from the shallow reef beyond the channel. 

Another look towards the channel from the Beach House.  The current gets pretty swift through here, but it brings you back into the bay area of Lawai.  This channel is the area we often see turtles.  And the occasional monk seal. 

 Another view from the shallow reef looking in towards the Beach House and the small Lawai beach.  The shallow outer reef runs pretty much across the whole width of the beach and curves in towards the restaurant.  There is water about 20' deep between here and the beach, but it's not deep for very long.

Often on the other side of the reef and channel near the Beach House, there are surfers.  One time we were lucky enough to catch a tandem surfing team practicing.

On to snorkeling.  It can be a bit tricky getting in here since it is so rocky by the beach.  But there is a small (about 5' area) near the center of the beach where it is sandy.  That's the best place to enter and exit the water.   Putting on the snorkel gear is a little trickier here, too.  Best way to here is to put your mask on after giving it a quick rinse in the ocean after putting defogger in it, then walk or float out until the water is about shoulder deep.  Then put the fins on.  That way is a whole lot safer and easier then trying to put them on while on shore and trying to walk with fins into the water.

Almost immediately there will be schools of fish.  Apparently many people like to feed them, so many of the fish are not afraid of people.

 We never feed them, but they come to check us out anyway.  Makes it easy to take close ups of them.

 Variety of fish looking for handouts.

and some more.

school of raccoon butterflyfish and some unicorn fish coming in.

We usually head to the left to the channel and look to see if any turtles are hanging around.

Usually there are.

I try to watch them from a distance, but they must be use to people, too.  Often they will swim right at us or under us.  

 A resting spot for a turtle.

I often see coronet fish riding along with a turtle.

There really are some pretty nice coral heads in the channel.  Unfortunately, I've seen them deteriorate over the 14 years we've been coming to Kauai.

 OFten there will be "cleaning stations" around the coral heads.  Lawai seems to have more cleaning stations then any other place we snorkel around Kauai. 

You can count on fish showing up to be cleaned.  This was the first time I saw a blue goatfish.  Here the little yellow and purple cleaner wrasse is cleaning the goatfish.

 a cleaning wrasse.

The outer reef.  Schools of convict tangs.

 Lawai is also the only place around Kauai that we've seen black triggerfish.

another cleaning station.

 and another with a really large needle fish waiting it's turn to be cleaned.

 It's often clearer out by the outer reef, too.  Easier to see good details such as here on this snowflake eel.

and this nudibranch

The school of black triggerfish seemed to be getting smaller, so I was happy to see this school of juvenile black triggerfish when we were there in 2014.

Lots and lots of schools of fish at the outer reef.

In 2014 I saw this pink tailed triggerfish there.  That's the only time I remember seeing a pink tailed triggerfish around Kauai.  Maui has lots of them.

Lots of fish nearer to shore, too:
Like this manybar goatfish

Use to see schools of redlip parrotfish here, but they seem to be getting fished out. This one is a male.
a couple large female Redlip parrotfish.

 black side hawkfish

 another odd cucumber--white-spotted sea cucumber?

The only Achilles  Tang I've seen around Kauai.

juvenile Bigeye Emperor

pair of Teardrop butterflyfish

male Surge wrasse

 barred filefish

 saddleback butterflyfish and rockmover

male Christmas wrasse

adult Orangebar surgeonfish

another filefish

 blue stripe snapper

 belted wrasse

 Orangespine Unicornfish

 a Blenny

Rockmover wrasse getting cleaned

Ringtail surgeonfish

more schools of convict tangs and surgeonfish

Threadfin butterflyfish

 Ornate butterflyfish

 scorpionfish

a ringtail surgeonfish and cousin orangebar surgeonfish

Peacock grouper

 Saddle wrasse

Reef or Picasso Triggerfish (the Hawaiian State Fish), also called the Humuhumunukunukuapua`a

school of Yellowfin goatfish

 male Spotted boxfish

Blacktail snapper

male Bird wrasse

female bird wrasse 

female Pearl wrasse 

flying gunard -- only seen here once.

male surge wrasse

Hawaiian white spotted toby

Saddleback butterflyfish

 Scrawled filefish

Moorish Idol

adult male Yellow tail coris

 Shortbodied blenny

Needle fish

ring tail surgeonfish and a female yellow stripe coris.

 Stocky hawkfish and Ambon toby.

Banded urchin

Pale rock boring urchin

 Sea Cucumber

a rarely seen trumpetfish 

 even an occasional lobster.

Lined butterflyfish (saw a pair of very large ones of these in 2014---only time I've ever seen them)

 another Blackside hawkfish with light face.

 Blue-eye damselfish

another Teardrop butterflyfish on a small coral head near shore

 juvenile Orangebar surgeonfish

a filefish with it's dorsal spine extended.

 male Palenose parrotfish smiling for the camera.

a female hogfish

 I believe this is a juvenile wrasse, but I'm not sure what kind.

 skeleton of an urchin

 pebbled or mulit-band butterflyfish

 Then when we've had enough snorkeling or need to warm up a bit from the 74 degree water, we like to watch for whales--here's one spy hopping a whale watching cruise.

 We watched this one breech for about 30 minutes.

 Here's one checking out a surfer.

 We often see a monk seal here, too.  One time 2 young ones exited the water right in front of where we were seated.

 They normally don't hang around together (thus the name "monk"), so this was a real treat to see 2 at a time.

Eventually they came up to our spot and we had to move.

We'll often stay here for sunset, too, along with lots of other people.

We've always gone to Kauai in Jan.-March months.  At that time, this is a good place to watch the sun drop behind the ocean.  When conditions were right, we've even seen the "green" flash a few times.