Good Example of when you DON'T want to catch fish and crabs for your kids

We Went For a Morning Swim At Hanauma Bay! - Hanauma Bay is a protected underwater Nature preserve, and if you took your nets and bucket down here you'd get in big trouble. I think you can still feed the fish here - but don't touch them and for sure don't catch them!! There are 6 or 7 protected underwater reserves in Hawaii - just make sure you aren't at one of them before you catch anything or fish in anyway.

Pictures of my son at the beach with fish and crabs we have caught

Joe with tourists kids at the beach behind the Kailua pier, across from the King Kam Hotel



See last tip - catch small fish and crabs for your child to see up close. We do this often and Joe usually ends up with all the other children clustered around him.



Joe with local kids at Onekahakaha Beach Park in Hilo

Make your Kid the most popular one on the beach

Go to any Walmart or any fishing store in Hawaii and get a net. The best ones are the small to medium size ones with a red net and a polished wooden handle. Look around the snorkel and fishing sections back in sporting goods. They run from $3.00 to $6.00. Then, buy or find some sort of a clear plastic container. When you go to the beach, set up your container with some ocean water, and set your kid out to catch small fish and crabs and shrimp and put them in the container.

When on a sandy beach, you can usually find small fish in the surf very close to shore, washing in and out with the waves. If there are any rocks around you want to go to them, turn them over, and quickly scoop out what was underneath them.

Try not to keep the fish and crabs too long so they survive the experience OK, and release them back where you got them from.


Joe with a net and a crab skin he 'caught' at Kalapana area tide pool

The sun in Hawaii ...

If you live almost anywhere in the U.S. you are going to be farther from the equator than we are in Hawaii, leaving your skin unprepared for the fierceness of the Hawaiian sun, and the speed at which it will burn you. So, get yourself some SPF 50 sunscreeen, and use it every time you go outside. Our current favorite is Coppertone Spectra 3 SPF 50. We use it on everyone.

Biggest tip: Do not lay out in the sun and don't read your books in the sun by the pool. Get under a tree or a pool umbrella. I can't tell you how many tourists I see walking around with skin so beet red it looks like it would be painful to wear clothes, sleep, move! That is no way to spend your vacation.

while at the tidepools yesterday ...

... I thought about this tip. When you get to Hawaii, especially if you are on the Big Island, or anywhere near any tide pools, get yourself and you children some 'tide pool shoes' like these. Myself and my son wear them when we are going to most beaches, especially on the Big Island because they are not totally pristine, sandy bottom usually. They keep the bottoms of your feet from being cut up. Plus, if you have them you can explore tide pools and go out on the rocks. You can pick them up at any walmart for 6 or 7 dollars. I like the ones with the thickest bottoms - more protection.

ideas

thick reef walkers/tabis
50+ sunblock / no sunbathing
first aid kit
nets - longs or walmart, plus bucket
rash-guard kid and adult swimsuit
to catch fish/shrimp, crabs, move rocks
gloves for snorkelers