Wrapping up our coverage of a recent Hawaiian excursion, we turn our focus away from the Waikiki Aquarium and decide to get our feet wet by taking a brief snorkeling break in Kona. While the trip wasn’t to any of the high profile reefs that dot Hawaii, we did get to see plenty of marine life and we were able to familiarize ourselves with the very capable Panasonic Lumix DMC-TS4 underwater camera. The trip was brief in duration and we didn’t see the amount of coral that we would have liked, but the abundance of fish life more than made up for that.
Upon entering the water, we were immediately greeted with dozens of tangs spanning several different species. Convict tangs were abundant closer to shore, but as we ventured out, the yellow tangs quickly took over. Several other species were also present in decent numbers, including raccoon butterflyfish, a green sea turtle, several large naso tangs, and an abundance of convict tangs.
The thing that interested us the most was the massive number of yellow tangs in the area. If you listen to the anti-aquarium nutjobs in Hawaii (e.g. Snorkel Bob), then you’d think that the tangs had all been collected out of the local waters and sent off to die a slow and painful death in captivity. Fortunately, they couldn’t be more wrong, and it’s clear that the reefs of Kona and other parts of Hawaii are teeming with life…including the all important tangs.
As for the camera, what can we say? That thing was a workhorse. Not only did it take some great photos for an underwater point-and-shoot camera, but it’s loaded with features. Going off memory and not formally performing a product review, the camera had built-in GPS and tons of different shooting modes that made underwater photography a breeze. We’ll have more on this camera in an upcoming review, but until then we’ll just let the pics speak for themselves.
