Snorkeling

Early morning today! Up at 5…..then quick coffee, juice, oatmeal and bacon before meeting up with the snorkeling group on the dock at 7. Today we snorkeled the Molikini Crater. The molikini crater is a volcanic crater that is underwater all but a crescent of the top….it has been underwater long enough to have become an amazing coral reef and is listed as one of the top 10 snorkel spots in the world.

Rich could care less about snorkeling, but humors the fact that I would spend my whole vacation snorkeling by taking me on one good snorkeling excursion on each trip. We hopped on the boat, finding a comfy spot on the top floor….where I could get sun on the trip out to the crater and back in. The ride out to the crater took about an hour and was pretty rough…lots of tossing and turning…. But the views of Maui from the water were spectacular.

We stopped, and they didn’t have to tell me twice to get in the water…I was in the first 20 off the boat (we had about 150 folks on the boat to snorkel with us) I had my underwater camera and a flip camera retrofitted with an underwater case to take video and I was SET. As always I was awed by the world ‘under the sea’. Fish and coral and anemone and urchin….so beautiful. A whole world just beneath the waves …and I always feel so grateful to be a spectator in that world for a time. We snorkeled for about an hour and a half, then we got back on the boat to head to a place where the green Hawaiian sea turtles like to hang out. When the boat stopped I was the third person off the boat….I wanted so badly to swim with a turtle..and figured my best bet was to get out to the reef before the crowd scared them off. I was not disappointed. The water was much murkier here than at the crater, harder to see….but I spotted a huge green sea turtle…and followed just above him for quite a while…I think I got a picture with my underwater camera, but it was murky and I didn’t get too close to him…didn’t want to scare him after all! I don’t know how long I was in the water following the turtle..but when I came to reality I was quite a ways from the boat and had been in the water for well over an hour… I headed back to the boat….harder in this direction swimming against the waves…..and I was shaking..needed food…blood sugar crash in progress…but I made it back to the boat.

Crew provided a nice lunch and I settled back to take a nice nap in the sun on the return trip to Maui.

Back on the boat treated myself to a trip to the spa for a pedicure…then back to the cabin to make a grand attempt to make myself beautiful for formal night. Dressed up…had a wonderful dinner…then I was just pooped …to bed early.

Tomorrow Hilo…and I might not even get off the ship. I want a nice quiet pool day!