The Big Island: Swimming With Sea Turtles

One of the beaches we went to on the Big Island was a partially man made beach at the Four Seasons resort called Kikaua Beach. One of the cool things about Hawaii, depending on how you look at it, is a law against private beaches, so even the most exclusive resorts cannot restrict you from accessing the beach. Kikaua Beach is man made done right, with ample sand and well done shaping and landscaping. Beyond the hotel grounds the beach continues in what looked like a natural stretch of sand for quite some distance.

 Several of the turtles were just past where the waves are breaking.

This large tidal pool area was surprisingly vacant of any life.

It's a nicely made beach. I tried to relax but after 10 minutes i was getting bored.

Small children set out to brave the ocean on their own.

We were relaxing, which i'm not very good at doing for more than 15 minutes, when i noticed this guy was spending far too long trying to get a shot of the beach on the rocks at the edge of the water. Maree mentioned something about a sea turtle, and sure enough i saw the head poke up out of the water. Some people said there was more than one, and at that i ran back to the car and got out the snorkeling gear we'd brought with us. I then spent the next two hours in the water. The area around Kikaua Beach, at least on that day, actually had more fish than Two Step.

Two turtles swimming together. I thought it was cute, until i saw another pair of them fighting each other because one tried to push in on the others algae feeding area.

Although the water was cloudier, i saw far more fish that day than any of the days we snorkeled at Place of Refuge.

The deeper water had bigger turtles. Of the 7 or 8 i saw this one was the deepest and biggest. The smallest turtles ate right on the shore, as pictured below.

This one was curious enough to swim up to me. I think it saw it's reflection in the lens port of the housing because it tried to bite it.

This as an octopus that you can't see, so i've circled it. I swear if it wasn't circled you would not be able to locate it. I have tested this out on people. It swam underneath me at a quick clip and i followed to try and get a picture but it freaked out, wedged itself into this rocks, and changed color to match the textures around it perfectly. I swam closer to it and it turned black as a warning, then quickly changed back to the rock texture. Really cool.