Day 5 in Maui - Monday

Maui Day 5 – Monday

This morning we woke early to a soft rain and headed down to the coffee shack and had bagels and coffee. As we sat there an old gentleman wheeled out the big birds they have in the courtyard. They have 1 white Cockatoo, and three Parrots, 1 red, 1 green, and 1 blue. I got the Cockatoo to say hello!

Slathered in sunscreen, we met our boat, the Teralini 2 again, and Kevin one of the crew from the previous night. We boarded much as we did two days ago, and the captain met us with the same story about safety and a decision. North into the rain, which had the better snorkeling, or south into the sun. I voted north for some odd reason, but everyone else voted south. South it was, and along the way… we saw more WHALES! We came right up close to a mother and a calf. The calf was slapping his tail on the water, and the mother came up and started showing him how! It was awesome! Here is a synchronized picture of the two tails up in the air!

We got a fruit breakfast, more coffee and guava juice, and then we arrived at our first snorkeling destination. The first time I snorkeled, years ago, I was nervous. YES, I saw a shark and that scared the hell out of me, but I was nervous. The previous night Jennie dreamed she had been attacked by whales while snorkeling, and I dreamed Chevy Chase was friends with my parents when I was a kid and I stared in a commercial as a baby for laundry detergent. Yep… that was a tangent, but I wanted to tell you about Jennie’s dream. Turns out neither of us had anything to fear. Now… my goal, my number one goal was to see TURTLES. I went in, saw lots of fish, and saw NO TURTLES. After an hour we got out, and then everyone saw them and here is a picture Jennie took!




Here is another one!



Remember how I said the whales were cool? The Turtles are almost as cool. They are just awesome. I could be a marine biologist. I love the sea life.

Okay, so we went to the next site, waited for another boat to move out, then we got in the water a second time while the crew cooked Hamburgers hotdogs and bbq chicken. My goal was unchanged. I wanted to see Sea Turtles. I was thwarted again. I saw some cool fish, and Jennie and I stuck together as we were scuba partners. So I came back to the boat, and as I got there Kevin told me exactly where the turtles were, in what he called a Turtle Cleaning station. I swam to where he said, and lo and behold, he was right. Turtle city. There were tons of them. All on the bottom, and then once in a while they would float up to get a breath of air, sticking their little heads up above the water. It was AWESOME. They are so cool! We don’t have pictures of them in this area because we were in the water, but trust me when I tell you… it was awesome!

So then we got out, and they opened the bar and the food flowed, I ate two hamburgers, half a hotdog and a big piece of chicken! Oh yes! Then we turned the boat around, came back toward the hotel, saw some whales along the way, and got so cold and wet in the rain we went down under. Then the sun came out, and we were back on the beach! What a wonderful ride! Awesome!

So we went to hang out at the pool… but the wind came up and the rain started again, so we came back to the room, a place we don’t spend much time. I called the kids, took a 10 minute nap, caught up on blogging, Jennie read her book, called her Mom, and did some facebooking with her new photos.