Snorkeling in Hanauma Bay

If you’re stopping by from Kristy’s Grow Your Blog hop, welcome! :] In case you’re new here, I’m a first-year resident Family Medicine physician and this is my tiny corner of the universe where I share recipes, bits on health/healthy living, travel, and excerpts of my life!

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I follow somewhat of a schedule and if you want to know where everything on this blog is, this FAQ would be the best place to start! The short version is that some Mondays, I share something either health or doctor-related (Medical Mondays) and I co-host a healthy recipe linkup every Friday (Foodie Friday).

You caught me on a Tuesday! I do a Travel Tuesday post pretty much every other Tuesday, and am about halfway through the trip I took to Hawai’i in June, before I started the madness that is my first year of residency! This week’s will be on snorkeling in Hanauma Bay! <3

If you’ve missed any of the previous ones and want to check em’ out, here you go!

• Vacationing on the cheap in Oahu
• Diamond Head hike
• Waikiki food tour
• Touristing + Food Truck Hopping through Oahu (with local friends!)

Normally, you can take a single bus (Bus 22) from Waikiki to Hanauma Bay, but since I booked my tour for 7 a.m. (I know, what was I thinking!?), it took a couple transfers.

As a result, my day started bright and early at around 5-ish a.m. because I wanted to be sure I caught the right buses to get there. I won’t bore you with details of my trek along the highway–my transportation to and from Hanauma Bay only took $5 round trip, so…worth it!

I’d booked a 1.5-hour guided snorkeling tour through Pure Aloha Adventures on Groupon and there was also a $7.50 entrance free. $1 for parking if you drive in–twas irrelevant for me since I walked.

Hanauma Bay is stunningly beautiful. If you’ve never been there, I would absolutely recommend it. It’s the perfect place to go snorkeling. :]

This was my first view of it. <3

A photo posted by Farrah @ fairyburger (@fairyburger) on Jun 6, 2016 at 10:28am PDT

There were so, so many fish to see! <3 (Just be respectful and don’t try to touch em’!) I don’t actually have any underwater photos for you though because I didn’t have a waterproof camera or case, so you’re just gonna get pretty pictures of Hanauma Bay instead.

Hanauma Bay gets something like 3000 visitors a day, so it’s closed every Tuesday (+ Christmas Day/New Year’s Day) to give the fish there some peace.

First-time visitors have to watch a video before entering the park to learn about the marine life, preservation, conservation, and safety rules. If you’ve watched it once though, you won’t need to watch it again for another 364 days, so remember that if you’re planning to return again on your vacation!

The park is open from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day (except Tuesday). It’s free for residents with ID, active military + kids 12 and under. You can rent lockers ($8-10) and snorkel sets ($20) from them, but it’s a lot pricier there than if you were to just bring your own. (If you don’t have your own, you can definitely get it for <$20 at the ABC stores.)

There’s also a tram you can take ($1 down, $1.25 up) to get down to the bay, but I’d recommend just walking because you can (1) save money, (2) exercise, and (3) stop to take pictures. It’s a reallyyy short walk.

My guide from Pure Aloha Adventures was Eva, and she was all sorts of awesome. She definitely goes above + beyond and I can’t recommend her enough! None of our group of three (there was a couple on their honeymoon + me) had ever been snorkeling before, so she walked us through all the steps and had us practice a bit before taking us out into the water.

7 a.m. may seem early, but it was the perfect time, because it gets super crowded later and a lot of the people there don’t exactly know how to snorkel, so they kick up the water and scare all the fish away. Morning = better. (You also don’t fry in the sun as much.)

Eva took us to a bunch of different spots in the water and pointed out a bunch of fish to us. She took me with her to see if we could find the sea turtles (honu!!), but they were out at the time (darn! :[ ). Twas okay though–I’ve never seen so much sea life up close and it was an amazing experience. I can definitely see why my brother loves diving so much! (I should have him guest post about that one o’ these days…)

The couple on the snorkeling tour with me helped me take these two pictures! (They’re probably the first pictures of me while I was in Hawai’i and this was day 5/8, hahaha.)

And…back to the awesomeness that was my guide (Eva)–she’d asked us earlier in the day what we were planning to do with the rest of our days, and when I said I was planning on going hiking (more like walking from lookout point to lookout point until I finally made it to a trail), she offered me a ride over to the Makapu’u Lighthouse trailhead! <3

(You can read about that hike next week instead of the week after! I’m shuffling it due to deadlines and life!)

• Have you ever been to Hanauma Bay?
• Ever been snorkeling? :O

Check out my other Travel Tuesday posts!