Living the Aloha Hi

Poipu Beach:

Continuing on around the island, the next beach we snorkel a lot at is Poipu Beach. It's about 2 miles from Lawai. As you walk up to the ocean, you'll see a right side and a left side with a sand bar (tombula) in between them. Most people will say if you want to snorkel, go to the right. Again, I beg to differ! The right side will usually have more people snorkeling there and it is usually good, but the left side is also usually very good, too---sometimes even better! For my blog, I'll divide Poipu up into 2 sections: Right Side and Left side.

Right side:
Since most people recommend the right side for snorkeling, I'll go here first. It is often more crowded, but there is a lot more area that can be snorkeled---all the way over to Kiahuna Beach by the Sheraton. It's often rougher then the left side, too. This is from the beach looking towards the right. There's mostly sand in the middle area, but it is rocky on either side and towards the shore.

Looking towards the tombula and the ample sandy entrance/exit area. This is another area where you can sit in the water and put your snorkel stuff on, or go in deep enough to put the fins on while in a standing position.

Couple more pictures from the water looking back towards the left.

looking towards the beach.

Now on to the fishies:
We've always seen a lot more needle fish here then elsewhere around Kauai.

A Unicornfish

Palenose parrotfish

Rockmover wrasse

Orange bar surgeonfish

4 spot butterflyfish

adolescent rockmover

juvenile orangebar surgeonfish

male surge wrasse

Cigar wrasse

scorpion fish

I actually noticed the smaller one before I noticed the larger one.

filefish

coronet fish

Moorish Idol

Christmas wrasse

school of goatfish

yellow tail coris, wrasse and a swimming eel.

Sergeant Major with a blue tint. I read somewhere that the male sergeant majors are the ones that protect the "nests".

swarm of fish looking for a handout.

a wormfish?

a cleaning station quite a ways out

brown surgeonfish getting cleaned

filefish

Elegant coris

light spotted sea cucumber

female Surge wrasse

Snowflake eel

Barracuda---this guy was actually right where the rocks started after entering the water---maybe 10' from the shoreline.

Another picture of the swarm of fish that will come looking for food. Watch out for the big gray chubs, they have a pretty hard nip---and we weren't even feeding them.

school of flagtails

juvenile yellow tail coris

When the water isn't too rough, there will be paddle boarders out there, too.

one of the calmer days.

On especially calm days, you can get out to good views of the surfers.

a Monk seal getting ready to hit the beach.

Now over to the Left side:
This is the side by the lifeguard station. There's also a shallow sandy area to the far side that is great for toddlers. Behind that area is an area with lots of pic nic tables. Notice how crowded it is here!

Right about in the middle of this picture are a bunch of rocks underwater that spell out Poipu. (During our 2016 trip here, we noticed the rocks here are now spread out and don't spell out anything anymore) That's one of our favorite places to go. Lots of fish like to hang around there, especially if you return rocks that have fallen off the letters. The fish love to see what you've stirred up.

The waves are pretty well knocked down before entering this little bay so it's often much calmer then the right side of the tombola. It doesn't get very deep throughout this whole area, but certainly deep enough to snorkel in. Plus, it puts the fish up close and personal.