The jet ski place wasn't open today, despite their sign, so Holly and the gang decided to snorkel at the pier area, which was really clear water and very nice. Whales again were spotted in the Bay--they seem to be numerous this trip.
Helen and I decided to head north to the sea horse tour (http://www.seahorsehawaii.org/) which was a bit pricey at $38/person, but well worth it for the informative tour and the opportunity to hold a seahorse.
The endangered sea horses are being reared at this facility, the only one of its kind in the world working on rearing 20 different varieties of sea horses. After disinfecting our shoe soles and scrubbing our arms up to the elbow, we entered the nursery area (all the visited areas were displays of the common sea horse) where we could not photograph or touch, but could see baby sea horses housed in huge blue poly tanks, and ranging from a few hours to a few weeks old. The next area was the adult sea horses, where we fed them some shrimp--again no touching/photos.
After tasting some seaweed, we passed to an area where we could feed some adult sea horses, and watch them move around--photos were permitted here:
We then moved on to the touching tanks, where each of us could hold a sea horse. Helen didn't want to, but I held one for a long time, with its tail wrapped around my finger. I took a picture of a nearby tourist holding one:
They are the only place in the world raising and reproducing dragon sea horses, which are very endangered (pictured at the blog top), and only live off Australia. Several other rare and endangered sea horses are part of the operation. None of the endangered sea horse breeding areas were open to the public.
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