Turtle fun!

It was another beautiful Summer day on Maui, and I was overjoyed to be getting out on the ocean!  I ran into a paddling friend right away and so we paddled together.  The ocean was still “loopy” today, but there was no wind blowing, so we paddled down to the boat ramp.  As we paddled in, I could see a small boat there and some tourists snorkeling.  The tourists were really loud and one of them was chasing the turtles!  My friend spotted the first turtle out farther and we paddled to it, but the snorkeler was swimming to it too.  We got there first, but as soon as the snorkeler got there, the turtle swam away.  The same thing happened a few more times, with a few more turtles, which was getting annoying, but eventually the three of them got tired and swam in.  My friend and I sat there, waiting for the turtles to surface, but I was afraid they were still hiding.  Then suddenly the turtles started to appear!  On big turtle popped up and hung around me for a while……intermittently popping his head up to look at me.  Then a smaller turtle surfaced and we hung around with that one for a few minutes.  I was starting to think that just might be it……until my friend yelled to me that there were two turtles behind me!  I turned around and she was right, but then two more turtles surfaced and  I was surrounded!  The four turtles hung around for a few minutes and I got to sit right in the middle of them!  We saw a couple more turtles out farther too, but they disappeared when we got to them.  I had counted seven turtles before the tourists left, so I don’t know if the rest of the turtles were the same seven coming up…..or if it was twelve or so turtles all together.  I guess I’ll never know, but it doesn’t matter, it was all fun!  The day stayed nice and we paddled back over the swells, and it stayed nice right through my swim too!  It was a great day to be at the beach!