Sixteen turtles!
It was already windy when I arrived at the beach this morning. It wasn’t too bad, but I did paddle against the wind on my way down to the boat ramp. I ran across my first turtle while passing Kam III, so I stopped for a minute. Then at the boat ramp, the turtles were active again today! Several times I was sitting surrounded by turtles and by the time I had counted fourteen, the red pontoon snorkel boat arrived with its snorkelers. One of the friendly crew told me that they had seen dolphins down by Keawakapu Beach, but with the wind the way it was, there was no way I was going to go that far! I waited around for a little while because he also told me the dolphins seemed to be moving north, but with the wind getting stronger, so I decided to head back. Just as I was passing Kam III, two more turtles popped up and I was in the middle again! I stayed with them until they disappeared, and then I paddled back. Initially the wind was at my back, but then it turned onshore and that made it harder to paddle since it was pushing me towards the shore. I just kept paddling! I made it back okay but I knew my swim would be a bumpy one. On my way down to the reef, I encountered a school of Ulua. There were about a dozen of them and they were the size of small dolphins! I saw them three times and one of those times, the fish swam under me! I just stopped and floated so I wouldn’t scare them and it was so neat just to watch them swimming around and nibbling on something good on the bottom of the ocean! On my way back, the wind backed off and it got really nice and glassy. It was just one of those days!!
