20150428 Hawaii Vacation- Waikiki Snorkel

Two weeks ago I revisited my dream destination- Hawaii. And once again we decided to only stay in Oahu as we have not enough time to explore all we wanted to see in our previous visit. But we did recall the wonderful snorkeling experience so we have specifically carved out time to snorkel in various coast lines this time.

The beautify, relaxing white sand of the Waikiki beach at Honolulu, Hawaii

First and foremost we went to the most accessible- Waikiki. It is amazing that with all the tourists, surfing, kids playing, and motorized boats in the near vicinity the Waikiki reef ecosystem remained in a very strong state. The amount and variety of fish in the near shore reef actually had significant increase since our last visit 9 months ago. We were able to see most of all the common species of tangs and wrasse along with a few that would have only appeared in the deeper water previously, but now are also living among the shallow reef. I used only an iPhone 5S with an otter case to shoot these underwater photos.

A goatfish and a two spot surgeonfish patrolling the shallow reef of Waikiki

Really healthy reef system with active growing sps coral such as this porcillapora colony here near shore Waikiki

Moorish idol feeding among the coral reef. Interesting observation: I visited the same area a few days in a row and found that the same group of moorish idol stays within a specific area, no larger than 1000 square feet and feeds only in that area.

Beautiful spotted box fish along the reef edge in Waikiki

A semi adult nano tang, what a magnificent creature and graceful swimmer in the wild.

Water clarity wasn't the best as the waves were quite high that day sweeping up lots of dust from the bottom. 

20140719 Waikiki Aquarium 2

Part II of the Waikiki Aquarium tour today-
I've already said this was where I first fell in love with the hobby. But the true reason I fell in love with it was because of its clam display. The setting is a bit different now than before as they have moves some of the larger "small clams" to an outdoor display (to come later). But they still host a variety of beautiful "small" giant clams. Such as these three tridacna squamosa in a reef tank with some of the happiest soft and large polyp stony corals I've ever seen

 Here is another Long nose hawk, not as large as the display by the entrance but equally as adorable

 Another squamosa under the light. I also want to point out that almost ALL reef system aquariums here are exposed to actual natural sunlight with supplemented 1000W metal halide bulbs- you cannot beat this lighting environment.

With huge system capacity and space, you can clearly tell that you can break a lot of the "rules" on what's reef safe and what isn't. For example, normally people would not consider harlequin tusk wrasse nor copper-banded butterfly "reef safe". But you can see that they are not only thriving in this system, but so are the corals!

 An illustration of how "happy" corals should look like, look at the tissue extension on all of them! And the water seems really bubbly because of the unique "surge" tank system Waikiki Aquarium invented to provide natural, life-like surges for the best of corals' health and oxygenation.

Hawaii vacation

Wet and wild recently had a vacation in Hawaii- and yes, we did some snorkeling and visited the world famous waikiki aquarium. And yes, there will be posts to share these experiences!