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Note:

Again, I experienced technical difficulties, beyond my control, in establishing hyperlinks to the websites cited in this blog. I have therefore decided to remove all hyperlinks. Hopefully TravelPod can get their technical problems corrected.

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Hanauma Bay and other Snorkeling Stories

Snorkeling, I don't want to do that!

I knew after my last experiences with snorkeling that I would not want to repeat that again.

Before leaving for Hawaii, I had decided that I would not be going snorkeling.

But then there was Barbara. She was positively bubbling over with her enthusiasm to go snorkeling.

So, who was I to stand in her way to realize her dream of going snorkeling? Before I knew it, we were headed to Hanauma Bay, one of the prettiest and most easily accessible places to go snorkeling in Hawaii .

Amazingly this underwater paradise is only 10 miles east of Waikiki and easily accessible by bus no. 22 from Honolulu.

Since access to Hanauma Bay is tightly controlled, its site has defined access hours and is closed entirely on Tuesdays. The parking lot fills early and late arrivals will be turned away as there is no other parking in the area. We were fortunate to still get parking in the afternoon. There is an entry fee of $1.00 per car and $5.00 per person.

So what did I bring with me on this trip to Hanauma Bay. Well, only my phobias it seems since the rest of what we needed was for rent at Hanauma Bay for $16 per person.

As Hanauma Bay is one of the most spectacular Nature Preserves in Hawaii, the first part of the visit is a mandatory 15 minute video about the bay and the efforts to reverse the damage that has been done over the years by millions of visitors. The main themes of the video are: the coral reefs in the bay are a living thing, the reefs are very sharp and can cut the skin easily, look but don't touch, tread carefully and be aware of all the safety precautions concerning dangers inherent in the currents of the bay . As a point of interest, there was no warning for predatory creatures in the warm waters of the bay.

There are waiting times to buy the entry tickets and further waiting times to see the video. Only then, after having seen the video, can one descend the steep long hill that leads to the beach and the rental facilities.

There is a huge sticker on the inside of the trunk lid on every rental car in Hawaii. It proclaims - "Do not Leave Valuables in the Trunk".

That is a huge problem when going swimming or snorkeling.

We had therefore decided in advance that I would watch the valuables on the beach while Barbara went snorkeling. However, that was not necessary as security lockers were provided at the rental office.

With the problem of securing the valuables taken care of, I was carried away by the beauty of the bay and could not resist the urge to join Barbara for a snorkeling adventure.

Before entering the water with all snorkeling gear I still had one additional thing that Barbara did not have - my phobias of what was lurking out there in the clear waters of the bay!

I will get back to that, but for now, where are the world's best places to snorkel or dive?

Wow, I am impressed . I did a Google search for -"The World's Best Places to Snorkel" and came up with:

The list was as follows:

- the whale haunted waters of Rurutu (a tiny outpost of the Australs of Tahiti)
- Hanauma Bay, Oahu - Hawaii
- Heron Island, Great Barrier Reef - Australia
- Jean-Michel Cousteau Resort - Fiji
- Anse (cove) Chastanet House Reef, St. Lucia
- Stingray World, Moorea - Tahiti
- Ned's Beach, Lord Howe Island (350 miles from Sidney in the Pacific Ocean)

Hanauma Bay is described as "the one archetype of a world-class snorkeling site in the world".

Unfortunately, the search did not come up with the answer I was looking for.

I had to google the "World's Best Places to Dive" to find the snorkeling/diving destination I want to discuss next.

Allow me to digress into into an unforgettable trip of a lifetime which led me to discover this place.

In the summer of 1987, I was on a solo bicycle tour of the French Riviera, from the Italian border to Provence.

Along the way, as often happened, I ended up cycling with another cyclist that I met along the way . In this case it was a Californian who joined me on my route to Aix-en-Provence.

We camped and explored Aix-en-Provence, a town I knew well since I took my first French course there in 1980.

In retrospect, even I find the next part of the story difficult to believe.

Both of us expressed an interest in traveling to Israel and Egypt but at the same time a reluctance to undertake the trip solo. We therefore decided to join forces to a visit to the Middle East.

As our bike trips were taking us in different directions from Aix-en-Provence, we agreed to meet again 10 days later in Marseille to fly to Israel for three weeks via Athens.

The impetus was the physical proximity of Israel from Marseille and the incredibly cheap price for the flight.

The cost of the airfare from Athens to Tel Aviv was noteworthy for two reasons.

We were flying on El Al, the Israeli national airline. Security was intense. In my own case, that meant a personal strip search and a thorough search of my personal affairs right down to squeezing my toothpaste till the tube was empty .

With my dark hair and mustache I would blend in well in the Mid-East, so there must have been grounds for concern.

At that time, 1982, every departure of an El Al flight from Athens was guarded by a Greek military jet which accompanied the flight till it left Greek airspace. That was in addition to the anti-missile defenses in place around the airport.

It made for a hair-raising departure, but when you are young, or should I say, younger, and stupid, why not go for it.

So it was that we rented a car and toured the major sights of Israel for about 10 days.

Our trip took us into areas that one can only dream about today.

We drove north from Tel Aviv to the port city of Haifa. From there we proceeded to the Lebanese border. On today's maps, there is a total absence of roads in that area.

From there we turned south to the beautiful town of Tiberius and the Sea of Galilee. Our route took us south along the Jordan River, spotting several border crossings into Jordan along the way.

The territory we drove through on our way to Jerusalem was the West Bank . I recall no problems driving through this region except one road block with a mob of people and raging fires built along the edge of the road. It was scary but we had no problem getting through.

After an unforgettable visit to Jerusalem, we changed from rental car to public transportation as we headed for Mount Masada.

I wish I could have blogged that adventure as only vague memories remain of this once in a lifetime trip.

Mount Masasda, a flat topped mountain containing the ruins of a fortress, is a sacred place in Israel. That status was achieved by a mass of over 700 Israelites resulting from a Roman siege in 72 BC. When the attack did not have the desired effect, the Romans built a giant rampart to reach the top of the mountain. When the Romans finally reached the top and breached the fortress, they were greeted by the mass .

We climbed Mount Masada as is the custom for every recruit of the Israeli army. This is done so that the sacrificial spilled here is never forgotten in Israeli history.

From here we continued by public bus to the town of Eliat near the Egyptian border .

In Egypt, our first overnight destination was St. Catherine Monastery, located in the southern quarter of the Sinai Desert. The next day, we climbed nearby Mount Sinai, where according to the Bible, Moses received the Ten Commandments. An overnight spent on the summit in our sleeping bags provided a once in a lifetime view of the desert firmament consisting of an unprecedented array of stars and orbiting spy satellites. That was followed in a most spectacular fashion by the glow of the rising sun over the eastern Sinai Desert, and I was there without a camera. Water, bread and a jar of honey, which I had bought in a Bedouin village, never tasted as good as we prepared for our descent.

The Californian with me was a snorkler and he kept babbling about some great snorkeling and diving spot at the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula called Ras Mohammed, located near the city of Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt.

Since we were in this together, I tagged along, and due to happenstance, bungled into one of the world's greatest diving and snorkeling coral reefs .

At the time we were there, the concensus among divers was that the Red Sea and the Maldive Islands in the Indian Ocean were the best places to dive.

That brings me back to the website about the best places to dive, that I cited above.

Up to that point in my life, I thought the most beautiful scenery I had ever seen was hiking in and out of the Grand Canyon in a two-day hike.

That impression changed after snorkeling at Raj Mohammed. I had never seen anything like it in my life.

To get to the coral reefs was about a half hour's boat ride. Once the plunge had been taken from the boat, it was a ticket into an indescribable world of multi-colour coral reefs and unimaginable schools of fish decorated in a kaleidoscope of colour.

Here I was gliding along cliffs of coral, floating over swirling schools of tropical fish in an unimaginable world of underwater beauty.

I was not alone in the water as there were other snorklers near by. That was a good thing, as I was also accompanied by my phobias of what was lurking out there.

I was constantly scanning for sharks and while I saw none, the odd sting ray kept my imagination going .

While I found the whole experience exhilarating, my personal enjoyment was greatly diminished by my phobias.

Years later while reading a newspaper report, I could identify with an American couple who were snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. They had also gone off shore on a commercial snorkeling boat. Their horror was to surface from their snorkeling adventure, only to discover that the boat had left without them. Shreds of their belongings were found on shore many weeks later.

With this as a background, I was not too eager to join Barbara in 2005 when we went snorkeling in the Florida Keys. We went out in a boat with a group of other snorklers. With Barbara in the water ahead of me, I was the last one to drop off the boat.

So there I was sputtering and thrashing about, trying to get my bearings in the water. Off in the distance I could see Barbara snorkeling along beautifully in a direction away from me. As the distance between her and me became greater, my sense of panic increased accordingly.

Why was this woman abandoning me in the middle of the Florida Keys - what was she thinking?

My sense of panic in the water was fed by the lack of visibility . The snorkler has a relatively small field of vision through the mask. That leaves one's imagination to fill in what is in the part of the sea that is not visible.

I can tell you that it was not good as imaginary sharks and other creatures just had to be lurking near-by.

It is not a good feeling and I decided that if I got out of this that would be my last snorkeling experience.

When I finally floundered my way to where Barbara was heading, I realized that was where the coral reefs were located. Upon catching up with Barbara and the other snorklers, I got little solace out of Barbara's explanation. She was under the perception that I was somewhere in front of her and she was trying to catch up with me.

It can be a lonely feeling when you drop into the water far from shore and the only other person is heading in the other direction while you're floundering to survive.

That was the first time that Barb abandoned me. You will have to read Blog No. 100 (estimate, since it hasn't been written yet) to see how Barbara abandoned me at Honolulu Airport . That was a classic!

I don't know what the psychological condition is called that I suffer from. When I am snorkeling in open water far from land, like in the Red Sea and the Florida Keys, I have the phobia that every shark in the world's oceans has a shot at me. There is just nothing, except maybe distance, to separate me from every shark in the world's oceans.

Maybe it is a version of agoraphobia- fear of wide open spaces, under water.

All rationalization aside, it boils down to my lack of courage which results in the amplification of possible dangers.

So that was the baggage that I brought to Hanauma Bay on Barbara's first snorkeling experience in Hawaii.

It was this baggage which prompted me to start this blog with the following lines.

Snorkeling, I don't want to do that!

I knew after my last experiences with snorkeling that I would not want to repeat that again.

Before leaving for Hawaii, I had decided that I would not be going snorkeling.

One look at Hanauma Bay caused me to change my mind.

Could there be a more protected place to snorkel in the world?

Here was a small horseshoe shaped bay with coral reefs very close to shore and extending for only about 200 meters into the sea .

Surely, no shark would venture into these shallow protected waters.

After storing all of our valuables in a security locker at the rental office, we plunged into the crystal clear blue waters of Hanauma Bay with hundreds of other snorklers.

My immediate comparison was with Ras Mohammed in the Red Sea and I quickly concluded that there was no comparison. While the underwater beauty of Hanauma Bay was spectacular it was not breathtaking like the former.

The biggest difference was the relative smallness of the coral reefs and also the impression that the better part of the coral reef was no longer alive.

In the Red Sea the coral reefs showed almost no rocks. As I recall, the reefs seemed to be abloom, virtually flowering with life. The flowering of course meant a kaleidoscope of colour that was only rivaled by the overabundance of tropical fish who called the coral reefs their home.

The coral reefs also dropped off in giant underwater cliffs fading into the deep blue of the Red Sea.

One of my fondest memories is literally floating on top of giant schools of fish which were swirling below me in a funnel-like circular dance . There is nothing like it on land.

Hanamau Bay did have quite a diversity of colourful tropical fish which flitted about the coral reefs flashing the beautiful colours which one often sees fleetingly on display in the salt water aquariums of dentist's offices.

The coral reefs at Hanauma Bay are, for the most part, very close to the surface of the water. They are so close, that often there is a feeling of claustrophobia.

At times panic struck, as my chest scraped on the sharp coral edges and I was overcome with the urge to stand up. That was not an option, as damage to knees and legs would be inevitable. The only recourse is to grin, behind the mask, and bear it.

Overall, Hanauma Bay was a very pleasant and rewarding experience. Our only regret was in not having bought a "throw-away" underwater camera to record the moment.

Our visit to the bay answered a question. How can one come to Hawaii and not go snorkeling?

As it turned out, we went snorkeling in Hawaii only one more time. It was on the island of Kauai and unfortunately, it was not as good as Hanauma Bay .

So after all this, is my confidence in snorkeling restored enough to be able to face snorkeling in the open ocean of the Florida Keys or the Red Sea?

Why, hell no!

We drove back via the Pali Highway.No. 61. It crosses the interior mountains and affords some spectacular views as it winds its way back to Honolulu.

Coming Soon: Oahu - The North Shore and the Big Waves