Nov. 1, 2013:

The surf was coming in pretty good again at the Elysian.  It rained all night, too, and really stirred up the sand.  We decided to head north again.  I know Coki gets high rankings for snorkeling.  I don't think it's that exceptional, compared to Cowpet, but it is a different experience, so we went there first.  It is quite an operation with waiters on the beach.  Sort of reminds me of being on a cruise ship with all the waiters wandering around the beach.  After being walked into the bay area by "our" server, we headed into the water.  First we went to the left and around the little point.

Immediately upon entering the water I saw these little guys in about a foot of water. (juvenile
Palometas?)

 As with everywhere around the island, we saw a lot of these urchins. 

 A few of the colorful fish around the point.

 and another "feather duster" worm.

 Have no idea what this gelatinous pulsating mass is---I assume it is a type of jelly fish.  Saw a few of them here at Coki. 

 A knife fish?  These guys seem to like to hang around the sandy areas.

Angie and Josh soon tired of the sparce terrain to the left and headed over the sand towards Coral World.  Along the way they pointed out these interestingly marked crabs. 

Also passed schools of fish along the sandy bottom.

 By the rocks at the other end of the beach are a lots of fish that are use to being fed.  I presume this is why they claim this is a great place to snorkel.  There are a lot of fish here, but that's because they want to be fed.

 Around the rocky edge, I came across this large colorful lizard fish. 

 As the terrain got more interesting, the buoys marking off Coral World restricted our advances.

 A little of the coral on our side.

 one of the colorful parrot fish here.

 another colorful tiny fish

 a spotted puffer?

a file fish, I think.

blue surgeonfish (tang) or "happy face" fish, as Ken likes to call them.

The snorkel area is rather small.  So as the cruise passengers started to arrive and it got more crowded, we decided it was time to head off.  Another final look towards Coral World from our stuff.

We knew Sapphire might be crowded, too, but also knew that the reef there is quite a ways out.  Not many people seem to know where the reef is or be willing to swim that far out.  So we stopped at Sapphire on our way back.  The reef is near the point at the far right of the coast line (middle left in this picture).  There are fish and dead coral closer to shore, but it gets a lot better out by the point.

Some of the critters and terrain out there:

another type of worm?

Elkhorn coral

another juvenile queen angelfish

Lots of schools of snappers by the large Elkhorn coral.

Large porcupine puffer.

more corals

large spotlight parrotfish

4 eyed butterflyfish

damselfish

the blue tang surgeonfish again

All the snorkeling made us hungry, so we headed to the casual dining area at our resort---Sangria's.  It was very nice with great food and great views!

 View from our table at Sangria's.

The Elysian waters looked too inviting to pass up.  So after lunch, we headed back into the water.  

Even though we like to swim out around the point and far to the left, there are tons of fish in inches of water just feet from the shore.  Like these guys:
lane snapper

 a high hat

 another snapper?

2 different snappers

 another juvenile beaugregory damselfish

 terrain to the left by the shore with tons of baby fish.

 long spine squirrel fish---there are bunch of these guys by the desalinization pipes near the shore.

Josh even discovered the home of this octopus.  It had a bunch of empty conch shells around it's den.  Angie and I visited him every day.

angelfish

 sawcheek Cardinal fish

 flounder

 a wrasse--we see lots of bigger wrasse in Hawaii.

 blue headed wrasse playing merry go round.

After snorkeling, we hit the pool to relax awhile.  Love the view from the pool area!

While I was at it, I took a few pictures of the local landscaping flowers:

Time to get cleaned up and head off to REd Hook for dinner again---Pizza this time on the marina side of the road.  Great views and great pizza.