Early Morning Swim

Aloha,

This morning started early. We, B, H and I, left the rack around 0520 and got on the road about 0605 and headed north. The North Shore is pretty barren this time of the day, but a few die hards were already out. We made a B-Line for Shark's Cove. This is a wonderful little cove east of where the really big surfing occurs, that is a great place to snorkle.

We had gone snorkling at the Cove a couple of weeks ago when some friends were here and I was very impressed. The water is very clear and the coral in the area is quite plentiful making opportunities for fish watching regular and interesting. This morning I was pleasantly surprised that our previous visit, in the middle of the afternoon with a small multitude of people there, was nothing, truly nothing, compared to what was in store for us this time.

We hit the water around 0645 and there was only 1 other group of 3 there. The Cove is probably 70-80 meters wide and about that distance out to the rocks that gaurd it from the open sea. Thus, you can see that we basically had the place to ourselves. I knew we were in for a treat when, upon getting out to about the middle of the Cove, I looked out at a distance and my field of vision was just peppered with fish. More to see in this one view than in my whole visit last time.

While H went wading in the tide pools, B and I headed to the shallows opposite to the end where we put in. We got close and B points frantically at this school of fish. We moved in a bit closer and noted a school that appeared to be a couple of hundred strong. As we sat watching, the tide pushed into the middle of the shool past a couple of very large rocks that had previously been blocking part of our view. What we saw then was truly amazing. We were indeed within the school but the size had been rather misleading. Now, looking from the middle out, we saw that the school was not in the hundreds but nearing the 1000 mark. It was remarkable. Parts were so thick that we couldn't see anything behind the fish. They were literally all around us. We sat quite still allowing the eb and flow of the tide move us within this small shallow and thus the fish were not alarmed at us but considered us part of the landscape. They moved in rather close and we felt that we were part of the group.

It was truly amazing. We also saw all of the different types of fish we had seen last time, just in much greater numbers. It was awesome being out there basically by ourselves. We had the whole place at our liesure. The early bird gets the worm.

Today was a great day.

Aloha.