Post #59417 by Kono on Tue, Nov 11, 2003 12:26 PM

I was just at Haunauma Bay a couple of months ago and, unfortunately, that bit about cracking down is not true as far as I saw. Tourists were standing on the reefs and feeding the mongooses left and right. My left ankle is still giving me troubles from getting accidentally swept into a collision with some chunk of reef. :( You do have to watch a video beforehand but I never saw anyone get yelled at or warned or anything.

The last day we went we snorkeled waaaay out and were having a good ol' time with about three hours left before the park closed. We're heading in to rest a bit and we see a turtle! Cool. We took some pics of her with our underwater disposable cameras and up comes a lifeguard on a surfboard. He tells us that they're closing the beach because of Portuguese Man-o-Wars. We haul ass in and I'm getting a charley horse which hurt like hell. We get in ask around if anyone's saw the jellyfish. No one saw any. We ask the lifeguards if there was one or two and they said that a bunch of them were sighted. The currents carried them into the bay. We hang out for a long time and were actually the last to leave. We're up on top of the hill scouring the waters below to see some jellyfish. We see three more turtles and a huge ray (manta?) but no jellyfish (I know they're small). As we finally walk up to the building complex we see the employees all setting up tables and decorations. My friend says "Y'all are getting ready to have a party, huh?" The guy says "Not us. The Mayor's having a party on the beach." Jellyfish? Right...