Love the Honu!

Today was even more windy than yesterday!  I knew it before I went down to the beach, but I guess I was desperate to go paddling, even in the wind.  It was mighty windy with choppy conditions and white caps too!  I paddled standing up as much as I could, but it was so much easier to power through the chop sitting down.  I paddled into the wind to the north but it took me forever to get down to Cove Park, so that’s where I turned around!  With the wind at my back, I was getting a pretty good push,  but it was still wavy and choppy, so sitting down to enjoy the sights was out of the question.  It was a paddling, paddling, paddling kind of day!  Then I paddled down to Kam II and turned around.  The wind has been crazy!  I knew I was in for a rough water swim too, but usually it’s not too bad with a mask, snorkel and fins.  I swam south with the wind and a few minutes into my swim, a big turtle swam by me, so I quickly turned around to swim north.  It didn’t seem interested in surfacing, so I turned around and swam south again.  Down by the reef, the visibility was not as good as yesterday, so I headed back.  Suddenly another turtle passed me swimming south, so I turned around again to swim with it!  The turtle came up right in front of me, so I gave its shell a rub……then it turned completely around and swam directly under me!  I wasn’t sure what it was doing, but I didn’t want it to surface again right into me, so I swam away from it.  Soon the turtle was right next to me and I was looking right into it’s eye!  Then it swam under me and surfaced right in front of me again…..so I gave it another good rub on its shell!  I love turtle encounters!  Hopefully the wind will get back to normal soon and I can paddle down to the boat ramp…..we’ll see……