After searching dozens of snorkel options for our trip to the Kona side of the Big Island, we finally chose the Expedition South Kona through Sea Quest.  This company gets a 5 star rating in my book!  Everything was great from start to finish.

The booking process was very simple and my added note indicating concern about the weather cooperating with our departure from our cold/snowy climate resulted in a phone call from Sea Quest the next day offering to take us out on the South Kona Expedition on Saturday instead of Friday.  This was a welcome surprise since I would have preferred Saturday right from the start, but according to the website Saturday wasn’t an option.  While switching from Friday to Saturday was great on the one hand, it presented another problem on the other hand that being what to do with our luggage.  The date change meant we would now be checking out of our motel before going on the snorkel adventure which equals all of our luggage in the car.  Leaving things in a rental car seems to be a bad idea anywhere on the Big Island where people watch for tourists such as us (LOL) and you can spot a rental car from a mile away! 

We arrived for our adventure a half hour early to try to figure out where the safest place to park would be, but the only place was a dirt parking lot off from the main road and no one around suggested parking there.  We checked in at the Sea Quest hut where we met Tony who was INCREDIBLY helpful and sympathetic to our predicament.  He let us know that if we happened to find an open parking spot in the marina parking area in front of their hut our things would be safe there.  Right when it appeared no cars were going to be moving anytime soon and we had decided that my dad would stay with the cars in the unsafe parking lot (he doesn’t like water anyway and didn’t seem that interested in going on the snorkel), a parking spot opened up.  My mom stood in the spot while I summoned the rest of our group.  They quickly moved all the luggage into one van then Tim made his way around a couple blocks to the new parking lot while the rest of our group made their way to the boat.  During all of this craziness, Tony was again, INCREDIBLY, helpful and very patient with us.

Finally, we were all on the boat and headed out to sea.  Tony tapped me on the back and said, “now mother can relax and enjoy the trip.”  HAHAHA…. I’ll admit to being a tad bit stressed!  Tony and his assistant, Josh, made sure our group had an exceptionally delightful Expedition South Kona snorkel trip and I HIGHLY RECOMMEND Sea Quest if you ever find yourself looking for such an adventure on the Big Island.

Now for the pictures (and I’m so bummed I didn’t get a picture of our guide nor the boat so you’ll have to check those out on the Sea Quest website).

We weren’t scheduled for a “whale watching” tour, but we may as well have been given all the whales we spotted.

We weren’t out more than 5 minutes when Nathan spotted the first few!

He was pretty excited.  There were a few closer to our boat, but these were the only pictures which really turned out.

Our first snorkel spot was Place of Refuge which I posted about previously.  My mom was a little reluctant to give it a try, but our great guides gave her lots of tips and she took right off.

It took a LOT more coaxing to get Nathan to give it a try. 

Half way ino our time at the first snorkel spot, he decided to join us and then we couldn’t slow him down!  At first he wanted to snorkel beside someone….

After he got the hang of it then there was no slowing him down and he didn’t wait for anyone which made me a little nervous!  I’m glad he got in the water so he could see all of the turtles and fish swimming around in this area.

The rest in our group are old pro’s at snorkeling.

This picture was taken near our 2nd snorkel spot which was probably my favorite.  It was just a little reef, but it contained incredibly vibrant colors and a TON of fish.  It’s obviously not well known because we were the only ones there :).

Nathan was keeping an eye out for critter. After our 2nd snorkel, we spotted some spinner dolphins which I didn’t take time to get a photo of, but I did get this cute photo of Nathan keeping an eye out for critters.

One of the reasons I chose this particular excursion is because it went to sea caves

 We ventured along the coast to see the lava tubes and unique rock formations at what’s called Arch City.

It seems the easiest way to view the white or black sand beaches is by boat unless you allow plenty of time for hiking to these remote places.

Our last snorkel stop was at the Captain Cook bay.  This was also an incredible snorkeling site.  I can see why it’s so popular.  You can snorkel everything from shallow reefs with tons of fish to a wall where you can image all that’s out in the deep blue yonder. After we finished snorkeling here, we were served a great lunch of sandwiches and fresh fruit!  YUM!

We were quite impressed with the variety of scenery along our sea shore tour.

Here are a few pictures of VOG one will experience on the Big Island.

It was definitely more noticeable the further south we went.

I didn’t realize that VOG wasn’t isolated to the Big Island.  One day while in Kauai there was a VOG warning.  It looked overcast, but it wasn’t.  It was VOG.  I also noticed I had a little bit of a hard time breathing that day.  Hmmm… I wonder if it could have been due to VOG?  Whatever it was, it didn’t stop us from carrying on with the plans for the day.