Kihei Boat Ramp

The day looked really beautiful so I couldn’t wait to get down to the beach.  Just as I hit the traffic light at the end of the street…I could see that the whole parking lot was closed!  My first thought was possibly a shark sighting, so I parked across the street and walked over to check it out.   It was just perfect out on the water and no shark signs, so I asked a worker who was doing some digging down by the volley ball court why the parking lot was closed.  His response, “Cuz we’re doing some work at the other end of the park”…  my response, “You’re doing work at the other end of the park and so the whole parking lot is closed????”  His response, “Well,  go call the office!”  Okay, I’m all for fixing up the park and maybe blocking off one or two parking spots to park the equipment they are working with, but the whole parking lot?  I shook my head and thought, only on Maui!  Oh well!  I had to paddle a few quick sprints just to shake off my frustrations and then I forgot all about it.  Conditions were perfect for paddling so I paddled down to the boat ramp.  When I arrived, I only saw one person snorkeling and no one else, so I pretty much had the place to myself!  It wasn’t long before I spotted my first turtle, so I paddled over to it.  When I got to it, two more turtles surfaced creating a “turtle triangle” and I was right in the middle of it!  Then I saw a paddling friend coming in my direction and she had her iPhone again.  Only some of the photos we took yesterday turned out, but I took the best video of the day of a big turtle swimming by my board and popping its head up a few times!  We tried to take video today too, so we’ll see how that turned out.  There were so many turtles!  I had so many of them hanging next to my board and swimming under me and popping up on the other side of me and just swimming around me!  I had counted over twenty turtles by the time the pontoon tour boat roared up with its snorkelers.  My friend and I stayed around even with the boat there and all the snorkelers….and there were still more turtles surfacing and swimming around us!  The day stayed nice and we paddled back in perfect conditions.  My friend went in and I headed back to Kam I, but just as I was about to leave Kam II,  I saw a turtle swimming under the water so I followed it for a few minutes, but it never surfaced.  The conditions stayed nice all the way through my swim too.  It was just a really perfect day even though it started out frustrating!