KAO MOKU | Goat Island

The beach that we most often visit is known as Hukilau Beach. This is one of my all time favorite places to spend my time. It is also within reasonable walking distance of where I live, which is important when you don't have a car. When you look out into the ocean, the flat land mass commonly known as Goat Island, is directly out from the shore.

I have always been a little skeptical of the island, first of all, because there are actually no goats inhabiting the island? But second, since my shark diving adventure (see previous post). Our guide on the boat informed us about how much tiger sharks enjoy spending time around this area. Tiger sharks tend to be aggressive because of their territorial nature. Of course this made me nervous to think about swimming in the surrounding waters, but it also sparked curiosity. Although I wondered if these creatures truly lurked here, I wasn't about to get in the water to find out. That is until I saw someone swimming from the island with all of their body parts still intact. This brought me to the decision that I would probably be just fine, and I even convinced some others to join me.

I was quite surprised to have these friends so willingly agree to come with. I definitely did my best to act like it was no big deal and people do this all the time. Mainly so that if there was a hungry shark, maybe he would choose one of the others to snack on instead of me. Although I was secretly a little disappointed as to have not seen any sharks, we did make it to and from the island in one piece.

As you can see, the water is very shallow making it easier for those worried about the depth. It is also difficult to swim having the bottom so close. At some point it became easier to actually walk; being cautious of the sharp sea urchins below of course. It was comforting to know that if I did encounter a shark, I would have the power to actually run away instead of swim. ;)

We found some tide pools, that were home to lots of little fish and crabs that actually started to get used to us. They swam up right next to our legs and feet. The island is actually a bird sanctuary. My favorite part was that it provided its own personal little secret beach. We had a lot of fun. I would recommend this, so long as you watch out for those sharks.