Humuhumunukunukuapua'a

Yeay we moved to a super nice spacious condo right on the south shore.  Even though we are surrounded by bingo-loving senior citizens, the spotless bathroom, full kitchen (including gas stove, wow!), and complete privacy was worth the extra $$.  Liane told the host of the Gueststye that we had to leave because "Leila is extremely allergic to cats and didn't bring her medication".  It wasn't a complete lie, I did feel a little sniffly and wheezy, there was just more to it than that....    like the thick black mildew that I had to stare at on the shower walls.

Got a few groceries to supplement the big box of food we brought in the tiny town of Kaunakakai before heading east.  Glad to have the option of small Outpost Natural Foods store even though prices are outrageous.  A pint of organic half & half cost $4.40.  A gallon of gas is $4.13.  There's only one major highway on the island and the speed limit is 35mph.  No traffic lights, and hardly any traffic.  We were often the only car on the road for long stretches.  Wow.  I really love the lack of development here, just houses spread out here and there.  There are enormous ancient fishponds attached to most of the shoreline, a few actual beach parks, and many tiny deserted beaches.  

We stopped for a quick snorkel at 20 Mile Beach (at the 20 mile marker, fancy that!) and I have to say that that is the shallowest reef I've ever snorkeled.  Molokai has a long fringing reef along much of its southeast shore, which on a map looks like a snorkler's dream, but it was actually quite difficult.  When I say shallow, I mean in some spots there was barely any room for me to glide over the coral without scraping my nipples and knees.  And you know, I'm only a 34a cup!  Had to dodge the wana (sea urchins). We found some deeper channels to swim through and enjoyed seeing lots of live coral though hardly any fish.  At least the first fish we did see was the charming humuhumunukunukuapua'a state fish.  We also saw a few manini (convict tang) and belt wrasses.  Our necks were getting sore from having to look forward the entire time (instead of straight down in deeper water) and I was starting to feel like this session wasn't worth it until I spotted a school of 15 extremely large unicorn fish.  Neato!  I squawked through my snorkel to alert liane and we watched these 24" blue-gray fish wend their way around seemingly disproportionate shallow waters.  Also saw a school of nearly transparent needle fish floating near their usual surface territory.  Definitely worth it.

(sorry, can't seem to upload anymore pictures tonight...)