Turtle kind of day!

Yesterday it was so nice to have no vog……and then there was some smoke in the air from cane burning……I sure wish they would put an end to the cane burning!  Luckily it was just hanging around the base of the mountain and eventually it did blow away.  It certainly was a day for turtles though!  I ran into a paddling friend on my way down to the boat ramp so we paddled together.  She spotted the first turtle….and then two turtles surfaced right by me!  By the time I had counted ten turtles, my friend had to leave, and I stayed until I had counted over twenty turtles for the day!  Today when I arrived at the beach a breeze was blowing from the south and it had the surface of the water kicked up.  It started like that yesterday too, so I hoped it would back off.  Sure enough, about five minutes into paddling, the wind backed off and the ocean got glassy and nice!  The skies were mostly clear and the whole top of Haleakala was clear too.  It was just a really nice Fall day!  I paddled down to the boat ramp and it was actually kind of hot without a breeze blowing at all.  I was surprised that I was the only one at the boat ramp since it was a weekend day, but I wasn’t complaining.  Just as I was paddling into the area, I spotted two turtles, one on each side of me, and then a third popped up in front of me so I was instantly in a turtle triangle!  This happened to me two more times in a row and that was nine turtles within just a few minutes of each other!  The turtles kept popping up and some of them circled me and swam under me too!  By the time I counted twenty turtles, I decided to paddle back.  Just as I took off, three turtles surfaced all on my left side and were on the move, so I kept paddling!  When they stopped, I stopped too, of course!  Then I saw two more turtles surfacing near three other stand up paddlers that had just entered the area.  In all, that was twenty-five turtles for today!  The conditions stayed glassy all the way back and my swim was very enjoyable too.  The underwater visibility is still not that great due to the swell of the last few days, but hopefully by tomorrow it will clear up down by the reef.  When the visibility is not good, I don’t hang out at the reef!  All in all, it was a beautiful day on Maui!