Nine turtles!

It was a morning much like yesterday, with decent conditions for paddling.  There were white caps way out there, but near shore, it wasn’t windy at all.  I paddled straight to the boat ramp, but when I arrived there were six snorkelers already there!  Fortunately, four of them were swimming away and only two remained.  One of them was yelling to the other one saying….”otros, otros, otros!!!”  I am not sure if I spelled the word right, but I think that is a spanish word for “others”. Well, yes, they were excited at seeing the turtles below the surface!   I paddled farther south to get some distance from them, and spotted my first turtle.  It was a big turtle and it hung around for a few minutes, then dove down and disappeared.  Turtle #2 surfaced right after that, but then dove under my board and swam away.  Turtle #3 popped up out farther, so I paddled out to it.  It was very friendly and was just hanging on the surface, but floating closer to my board until it hit it, then it freaked and dove down under me and came up on the other side of me!  Then I noticed something out a bit farther and it looked bigger than a turtle, so I wanted to investigate, but a boat launched from the boat lane and created wake.  I just love it when that happens….and then when the water settled down, no sign of anything!  I thought that might be it for the day, until suddenly three turtles surfaced at the same time and I paddled right into the turtle triangle!  Then a fourth turtle joined us and I sat in the middle of four turtles.  After two disappeared, two of the turtles remained, one on each side of me!  We just floated there for a while and then one swam away and the other one swam under me. It’s relaxing to just watching them swim gracefully under my board!  Then another turtle surfaced out farther, so I paddled out, and another turtle popped up too.  It ended up being a good turtle day and the wind stayed out, until I was paddling back and a Kona wind started stirring things up.  It was a bumpy swim, but the water is so warm right now and pleasant.  When I came in, the wind line started to move in too, so it was about time to leave the beach!  All in all, a pretty nice day of paddling!