Snorkeling Review -Two Step, Hawaii (Honaunau Bay, Place of Refuge, Big Island)

Hey, guys. Welcome back to Adventures in Aviators and our snorkeling series as we discover all kinds of different snorkel sites here on the Big island of Hawaii. If you're new to our channel, please, like, subscribe and share this video. We want everyone to experience the beautiful nature that is all around us, and that's what we do here on this channel. So let's jump right in. Today we are talking about Two Step, probably the premier snorkel destination on all of the Big island and arguably all of Hawaii. Of course, we'll be ranking it on our scale of one to five Manta Rays, five, of course, meaning a premier site for that category and of course, the lowly one Manta Ray, if it is subpar in that group. Now, first, I feel like we should share that. Two Step is really the informal name of this site. This is here in Honaunau Bay. It's also right close to the Honaunau Place of Refuge, a very sacred Hawaiian site that is a historical park here. So all of this is kind of in the same area. So if you see signs for Honaunau National Historic park or Honaunau Bay, that is the same as Two Step. Two Step actually refers to the water access point, which is a small step down. And we'll talk more about that when we get to water access. But that is what we're talking about when we're talking about Two Step here along the west Hawaii coast. So where is Two Step? Two Step is about 40 minutes south of Kailua Kona town. So the main part of town heading south on Highway 11. Now at Captain Cook, if you've seen our Captain Cook video, the snorkel site there, there is a road, Nopoopo road or Highway 160 if you want to take a scenic route at that light that we showed you in that video, you can go right and go down through Captain Cook area down to that bay and then over, or you can take the main highway, Highway 11, to a pretty major intersection, at least for that highway, which has a turn lane for you to head down towards Hon and the Two Step area. If you're staying in the resorts north of town, it's probably going to take more like an hour for you to get there. So it is a little bit out of the way. As you come down the mountain, you'll see signs for Honaunau Place of Refuge. And that is going to be your turn in there. Right as you see a one way street sign to the right, there's Actually going to be some free parking there on your left. That is the main free parking here. If you keep going straight, you'll run into the National Historic site where you can pay $15 to park there. And if you're looking to make this a whole day, I definitely recommend doing that. There are actually also some legitimate bathrooms over there as well. So it might be worth go ahead and paying the $15 to park over there and just walk over to Two Step. If you take the one way road in, there will be a $5 local parking spot there paid to the locals which puts you right next to the water. So that's a nice option as well because it is a decent drive from town, especially if you're staying in resorts up north and with limited free parking. I'm giving the location here two Manta Rays when it comes to water access, Two Step is the name of this place for a reason. It's because of the naturally carved out step down that is provided here in the lava rock. And if you have watched some of our other videos, you know that water access is a really hard thing along the Hawaii coast. A lot of it is this lava rock. It's really dangerous, it can cut you. It's. It is not easy to get into the water, but this nice natural cutout provides a place for you to sit, put on your fins and slide into the water pretty easily. If you get there early and there's not a lot of people around, you can see it here on this video that it's just straight out from the rocks and it's a nice little place for you to sit down. Now you might be tempted to want to use the boat ramp and that little slight decline into the area here on the left. But again that is for boats and there's going to be boat traffic there. So we really discourage you from trying to go out that way. Cut the boat captain's a break and just use the Two step area as your main access point into the water. Once in the water you can see that you have a huge area that you can go exploring. The area to the south is a little bit shallower with just tons of fish, tons of wildlife all over the place. Beautiful reef. The early morning hours especially provide great visibility for you to see all the way down to the bottom. But you can really explore this entire bay and it gets quite deep to a point where you can't actually even see the bottom. So be prepared. You might see some big things or you might just see nothing because it's the abyss. But it's a really, really beautiful location. It's time to get back out of the water again. Go back to the Two step location and just like I've mentioned in our other videos, you really want to make sure that you watch out for sea urchins. Just give yourself plenty of time, wait for anyone that might be ahead of you and just safely get out of the water. And be careful not to get caught up and poked by any of the sea urchins that are around. Because of the convenient Two steps, though not as convenient as just a simple beach access, I'm going to give four manta rays for water access here at Two Step. So next up is wildlife. And again, this is why I think Two Step is probably the premier snorkel spot on the west side of Hawaii that you just see all kinds of stuff here. If you show up early enough in the morning, there is a reasonable chance that you will see dolphins here. Now that's not just in the morning, but that is probably your best time to see them. Give them plenty of space, let them come up to you if they want to. But what an awesome opportunity to go swim with a another mammal. Other things that you might see here would be rays, turtles, smaller sharks are possibility. You can really see anything here and it is really, really fun to just explore and see what you might see. Sometimes you get caught up looking at some of the smaller things on the reef. But don't forget to look around you. Beside you there might be a turtle swimming by or maybe an eel. All of this of course goes along with the tons and tons of beautiful fish all around. It's really a great place to explore and there's going to be lots of depth. You're going to get animals that live at a variety of depths. So it's really a unique and premier spot to see all kinds of wildlife in the water. And with all this wildlife comes of course, the illustrious five manta rays for this category. What an awesome place. This is a must see. If you come to Hawaii to snorkel of course, because it is so popular though because it's so great. We do have some water traffic that we have to be aware of and so that's our next category. Here you will definitely find yourself amongst the masses. If you wait till the mid to late day hours here you can see here, this is even pretty early in the morning and you've got plenty of people all along the rocks accessing the water. The good news is that you will have plenty of room once you get out there. It's not a small space and so you can go off on your own and kind of find different areas to look at and not feel crowded by people. You do however need to watch out for boat traffic as well. With few exceptions, if you book a tour to take you snorkeling, they're going to bring you down to Two Step. And this bay is beautiful. Everyone wants to come here, but that does mean especially in the mid to late morning hours you are going to start finding a lot of boat traffic as well. So as with most places, definitely go early to avoid the crowds. And especially here, the visibility in the water and it's just calm and all the things, everything about the morning hours here at Two Step are great, great. So because you do have a big space to swim around in, but you do definitely need to watch out for other people and boats. I'm giving this three manta rays for water traffic. Finally we have facilities and as we stated it is kind of out of the way. So there's not going to be a lot in the way of facilities here. They do however have a slew of porta potties for you to choose from when nature calls. And so that is a nice thing to have here. But as far as you know, proper facilities, you are going to have an option, I guess over at the historical park at the place of refuge, if you pay the $15 to go park over there, you can use those facilities. But otherwise it's a porta potty. But it's what you need. So bring all of the other things that you might want so that you're ready to enjoy your time here at Two Step Porta Potties. What does that get you as far as the ranking? We'll give you two manta rays. So overall if you are coming to Hawaii and want to get in the water, Two Step is a must see destination for you. Give yourself plenty of time to get down there to enjoy yourself and to stay in the water as long as possible. Because it doesn't get much prettier than this along the Hawaii coast. As always, do your best to leave it better than you found it. Help us keep this reef alive and clean for generations to come. That includes using reef safe sunscreen or even better yet, you know, a rash guard or something to protect yourself that way. Enjoy the wildlife, but don't harass it. Just enjoy it for what it is and if it is curious about you, let it come on up and say hi. I hope that you're able to come out and experience this beautiful spot in the world. I hope we've provided you a couple more details about how that how to do that successfully. If you have other tips, tricks or suggestions, please put those below in the comments and help everybody else enjoy their time here along the coast of the Big Island. If you haven't subscribed, please do that here, get notifications, and stay up on all of our new content coming out all the time. Thanks so much for tuning in and we'll talk to you next time. Sam.