Aloha Day 10

This morning we went snorkeling at Hanauma Bay. We had heard great things from our friends and family members so we were really excited to go. We got picked up at 7:30 in front of our hotel by a native Hawaiian man named Jerry. He has 12 children, ranging in age from 8 - 35! Wow, he's busy! On the way up he told us the do's and don'ts of snorkeling there. He told us a lot of stories about the land and other points of interest while we were coming home.
The staff at the preserve made everyone watch a video before they would allow anyone in the water, and they said that there were a lot of moray eels and urchins within the coral so I was afraid to touch anything. They also stressed that if we stepped on the coral we could break it, and if enough people did it then it would contribute to the reef dying... no stress, really!
The fish were few and far between. There was even more coral here than at the City of Refuge, so it was really hard to get out into open water. The waves were a lot bigger, and the current was a lot stronger. It wouldn't have been a big deal except that the waves kept pushing us into the coral- ouch! We tried snorkeling in several different areas, but we just couldn't find many fish. There was a lot of sand near the beach so we couldn't really see much closer to shore either. When we got out of the water we got A LOT of sand in our swimming suits... A lot...