This is probably the most popular snorkeling spot on the Big Island. The bay is mostly sheltered from the waves by the rubble remains of an ancient artificial breakwater said to be built by the Menehune, a semi-mythical pre-Polynesian people. Because of its reputation as a sheltered spot, this place is packed with snorkelers who have obviously never been in the water before. Many people were loaded down with lifejackets, water wings, pool noodles and full-face snorkeling masks. The bay is ringed with lava rock covered with algae that is a food source for turtles and fish. You are supposed to enter the water only from a narrow sandy pathway through the rock to avoid stepping on the algae. Despite the signs and roped-off areas trying to enforce this, most people were climbing all over the rocks and standing on the coral (the bay is mostly less than 5' deep). There were volunteers trying to monitor and enforce the rules and they (and the lifeguards with loudspeakers) were constantly yelling at all the people who were ignoring them. Between this hopeless yelling and the mass of people trying to walk along the 2'-wide sandy channel and put on fins and masks that they've never used before and then thrashing around trying to swim and bumping into each other, we called this place "Madhouse Beach" (later upgraded to "Shitshow Beach"). Once you get away from the area around the entry-point, it gets less crowded and we actually found it to be a pretty good place to snorkel. Because of the shallow depths, you can see all the fish up close. At most other sites, the fish might be 20' below you and when you dive down to them, they all scatter. This is the only place (other than Kiholo Bay) where we saw a turtle, which we thought was strange since we were used to seeing several everywhere we looked on Maui. Here on the Big Island, they seemed to be very rare. In the very shallow South end of the bay, the current was too strong to swim against so we didn't see what it was like there. The waves were too big to swim to the North end of the bay, where the surfing is, and if people tried they got yelled at by the lifeguard. We mostly stayed around the center of the bay.
Despite the crowds, we liked this place enough to come back 4 times. It probably had the greatest variety of fish of all the places we snorkeled. It was also one of the few places sheltered enough to dive on most days.
