Day 2 in Maui – Sunday, March 16, 2008

Sunday night sunset, around 6:30 pm

After staying up until 1 am the night before, it was hard to accept that we had to get up early (5:45) to be out of the condo and on the road in time to meet up with a boat from Boss Frog's called "Quicksilver" to do some Sunday morning snorkeling. Our excursion included a snorkeling trip to Molokini, a visit to a place in the water called "Turtle Town" and a BBQ lunch.

It was undoubtedly worth the trouble of getting up as early as we did.

Molokini is a little half moon piece of land that is actually the only part of an ancient volcanic crater that is sticking up out of the water. The trip was about a 30 minute cruise into the Pacific to reach Molokini, and along the way we got to see a group of humpback whales in competition for a female whale's affection. The male whales were trying to outdo each other in impressing the female, which the captain said is very common at this time of year.

Once we arrived, the crew gave us all a face mask, snorkel and fins and had us either jump off or push off the back of the boat into the water. The water was a cross between aqua and seafoam green, and you could see all the way down, 170 feet to the coral-encrusted sea floor. It was really lovely, and it didn't take long to get almost all the way up to the edge of the crater. After getting acclimated to my mask and snorkel, I took a couple of dives down into the water to get closer to the sea life.

There were so many kinds of fish down there! I saw coronetfish and butterfly fish and a little puffer fish too. Some beautiful fat iridescent blue fish, and some little tiny yellow fish also were not scared of me at all. In fact, it was obvious they've been fed by humans for a long time. They all kind of hovered around me expectantly, as if I was going to magically produce some yummy fish food from the insides of my swimsuit.

I also saw a slinky moray eel on the bottom, weaving his body in and out between rocks. He wasn't very interested in me, which I was glad for. Also there, but I did not see it (thank goodness!) was a baby white tip shark swimming around and observing the action. I don't think I would have been able to handle that one very well!

We snorkeled for about 45 minutes and it was awesome to paddle around in the water. I was so sure the water was going to be cold - undoubtedly the people on the boat wanted us all to think that because they made plenty of announcements along the way how their wetsuits were available for rental. I found, though, that the water was perfectly sublime. A little cold upon entry, but in no time your body has adjusted perfectly to the temperature and I found the whole experience to be wonderful. After dealing with such cold temperatures in San Diego for the last 6 years, I was ecstatic to be able to enjoy the water while still having feeling in my toes!

After some time passed, we were called back to the Quicksilver to head to our next stop - Turtle Town. Turtle Town is just another area off of the coast, not far from the Molokini crater, but it is known to be a favorite spot for turtles to hang out, and sleep at.

I went out with a group following a videographer (John), while Alberto stayed behind and swam closer to the boat. About 100 yards from the boat, John stopped and asked us to stay put for a moment. He dove down into the water below, and when he came back he brought a funny looking specimen from the sea floor to share with us. This was a pencil urchin, and they look like this:

He laid the urchin in each of our hands, and you could feel its tiny little scrabbly hooks trying to find a way to latch onto our skin. The pipes protruding from the body were dark red, and John told us that in the more primitive days of Hawaiian times, the Hawaiian women would rub the red off of the pipes and use the coloring as rouge coloring for their cheeks. I thought that was very creative.

Another dive down brought another surprise - this time John brought us a collector urchin, which looks like this:

It was much smaller and was black with very sharp hard little spikes. This one was even more aggressive about trying to find a way to latch on to us, and it was a little disconcerting to be holding it in my hand!

Show and Tell concluded with a brief swim further away from the boat and one more dive down into the water by John. This time, he was looking for turtles.

He went straight to a little shelf underneath the water that turtles are known to nap in, and sure enough, there was a big turtle, estimated by John to be around 60 years old, taking a morning snooze. It wasn't long though, before our presence woke him up, and he swam out from under the shelf straight toward us! He was headed to the surface for a breath of air, but I think he was curious about us and decided to survey us all on his way up. He made a couple of turns on his way up to the top, and at one point was coming straight at me and was so close that I had to back up a bit to get out of his way!

He was dark green with all the distinctive patterns on his skin. He had lots of marks on his shell - he had clearly been around for a while. His back fins were flat and wide and he had a sharply pointed tail that jutted out from the back of his shell.

After swimming over the top of some reef and taking in a few more breaths of air, he passed over to the the other side of the reef and let his momentum glide him down once again to the bottom of the ocean. A few minutes later, you could hardly see him, and the sand moving on the bottom of the ocean had already partially covered his body.

The group started heading back to the Quicksilver, and I lagged behind the group a little bit, hesitant to leave the water again. I made a couple of more dives down into the water and heard the most amazing sound - whale song! You can hear the whales singing in the ocean when you submerge. I guess the sound waves carry along the water. It is the most peaceful and tranquil experience I've ever had.

I *really* didn't want to get out of the water after that, but I was ready to get back to Alberto and share with him everything I saw. Back on the boat, the Quicksilver crew was busy barbecuing chicken and hot dogs for everyone. While we were waiting, the bar opened and the alcohol started flowing! A superb rum/pineapple juice drink later, I was gnoshing on a delicious grilled chicken sandwich with different salad greens, onion and tomato, with pasta salad on the side. Snorkeling makes you tired! It was also great to get some nourishment after taking in a few swigs of salt water during the morning's adventure.

Once people got to finishing up their plates, the crew came around with plates of delicious homemade cookies. Mmmmm, they were yummy.

On the ride back to the island, we saw a few more great things! Another set of competition whales were making a beeline toward Molokini, and they were going so fast that we had to stop the boat so we wouldn't be right in their path. They were really active, with lots of tail slapping and fin slapping causing small explosions in the water.

After starting up our journey again, we saw a couple of dolphins swimming and jumping alongside the boat. They were showing off their acrobatics and enjoying the water current being generated by the boat's engine. A little later, we came upon a sea turtle near the surface, the curved surface of his shell popping out from the top of the water. We slowed the boat again, and let a few minutes pass where the turtle bobbed along the surface next to us, picking up his head from time to time to take in his store of air. He looked at us curiously as we floated next to him, and then headed back down into the depths again.

Much closer to land, we saw one more interesting sight. A mother whale was with her calf in the water, and it appeared that she was trying to teach him how to do some acrobatics. We first saw them from a distance because the calf had just successfully breached the water! As we got closer, he was much more focused on trying to splay his tail wide out of the water. The mother did it as a demonstration, and then the calf tried repeatedly to copy her. But either he was just too young or just not strong enough because he would start off well, arching his back and heading downward into the deep, but when his back end would start to come out of the water it would just flop clumsily over to one side. Try as he might, he just couldn't get it! The mother demonstrated it once more, and then they swam out of sight a minute or so later. My guess is that he was ready for a feeding and a nap!

All in all, our Molokini snorkeling adventure was top notch from start to finish, and we bought a souvenir video from John to commemorate this most unique of experiences.

As awesome as all of this was, it had still only taken half of our day! We got back on land around 12:30. We spent the rest of the day relaxing at the condo and taking in the beautiful sights of the ocean at the end of our building. The photos of Alberto and me in this post are from the sunset that night.

Sunday evening sunset, 6:30 pm

NOTE: I'm sorry that I do not have photos of this day. We were concerned about bringing all of our digital equipment onto the boat - since we weren't going to be able to take them into the water it didn't make much sense to leave them unattended for anyone with sticky fingers. We did take some underwater photos that have yet to be developed! I will come back and post some underwater photos of the things I've described here if any of them look good!