Picture perfect day!

WOW….another picture perfect day on Maui!  The water was so glassy, I couldn’t wait to get out there.  I got out earlier today, so I headed down to the boat ramp.  The conditions couldn’t have been more perfect….calm, mostly sunny and no wind.  When I arrived at the boat ramp, no one was around.  I couldn’t believe I had the place all to myself since lately there has been so much activity going on at this spot.  I paddled in and sat down on my board and before I knew it my first turtle of the day surfaced out in front of me!  It was a really small turtle and it got spooked and dove down.  Then a larger turtle surfaced to my right and it was a friendly turtle!  Then a couple of turtles surfaced out farther so I paddled out to them, and another turtle popped up on my left side and I was sitting between them!  Before I knew it, turtles were popping out of the water all around me!  One very large turtle seemed to gasp for air when he came up and I noticed that he had a very large tumor under his mouth.  I don’t like to see that because I know that when that tumor gets larger, it will cut off his air supply and it won’t be able to survive.  That always makes me so sad.  That particular turtle stuck around for the whole time I was at the boat ramp too.  By the time I had counted about fifteen turtles, I noticed four paddlers headed my way.  I could see they were tourists with rented boards.  They stayed back from where I was sitting but I knew when they saw all the turtles, they would be coming closer.  Sure enough, they got all excited and started yelling to each other.  Then one of them paddled over to where I was and she said,”those turtles seem to like you”, so I told her that I visit them almost every morning.  Then she said, “those turtles seem to know you!” and then she told me she was going to stay by me because the turtles came so close to me.  Oh great…..just what I wanted to do, be a tour guide!  Oh well, the turtles kept coming and she was ecstatic.  One of the turtles swam under me and was just staying right under me, and then I heard “clunk” and it had tried to surface under my board!  It was so funny and the tourist thought so too.  Then we were surrounded by turtles a couple of times and I thought the tourist was going to faint!   By the time I left, I had counted about 26 turtles in all!  What a day!  The conditions stayed nice all the way back and the wind just started to come up when I went for my swim.  I ran into that large school of silvery-blue fish again today.  I wonder what they are up to?  What a nice day to be at the beach!