Coming to Hawaii, I was most looking forward to food (obviously) and snorkeling. All the beaches we went to and heard about were truly disappointing. Hanauma Bay is like snorkeling in L.A. traffic and even the coral reefs at Lanikai were a bit sad. So David and I decided to hop on a boat excursion that guaranteed that we would snorkel with turtles, fish...and dolphins! I was crossing my fingers hoping that it wasn't some cheesy show with caged animals that we'd be looking at...and it definitely wasnt!
We woke up at 4:30am and set out to Ko'Olina, a beach about 30 minutes away from our hotel. We arrived at the marina:
Had some breakfast, met Captain Rob (from Santa Monica on a 15 year "extended vacation") got prepped and set out towards the ocean.
Luckily, it was a beautiful and calm morning:
Then everyone on our boat began to search for spinner dolphins. Found!
This was when my heart started beating a little bit faster. What if those fins belonged to sharks? What if the dolphins decided I would make a nice breakfast? When we started spotting more and more pods of dolphins, the captain decided to anchor ship and let us loose! We had a cool photographer that came on the boat and took pictures of everyone. I think he's a professional diver because he got some crazy shots at the bottom. Anyway, we got suckered into buying some photos...but it was worth it! :)
Everywhere we swam, dolphins were swimming next to and under us!
Here's one of David chasing an innocent turtle:
Surprisingly, we saw more dolphins than we did turtles. Here's another turtle just cruising:
About 45 minutes later, we headed off to see a coral reef. It was pretty fantastic! This guy had fish food with him - he got a lot of attention!
Shaka!
Everything seems to be moving around me so I feel like I'm still on a boat - and I kinda wish I was!
4 comments:
it's about time!!! glad to hear you guys are having a good time...more pics please!!!
As binkerbots said "it's a bout time"! Glad you are enjoying your vacation. I hope you don't stay on the island for 15 years like the Captain! Have good news to share with you and binkerbots!=)
wow! looks amazing! you guys got to swim with dolphins?! and turtles too?! i've only ever seen 3 turtles at a time but never a dolphin. the boats we were on would find a pod and head towards them but the dolphins would always swim away ... looks your dolphins had as much fun as you guys did!
For your first time snorkeling, I am dang proud of you! Too bad we didn't find any Snorks hangin out down there. haha.
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