Maui Adventures IV – Snorkeling

Morning came unusually earlier – knowing that we were tired, I decided to set 2 alarms just in case since we had to check in for our snorkeling trip at 6:30 am.  Did I mention being tired?  One of my phones is set for Seattle time still and the other is in Maui time, but in my sleepiness I set alarms for both as though it were both set for local time.  So when 6 am rolled around, I jumped out of bed, quickly got ready and woke the guys.  They were really quick to tell me that I was actually waking them up at 3 am!  The wrong alarm went off; I quickly apologized and jumped back into bed.

I was very excited to go snorkeling having never done it before.  We showed up blurry eyed, thanks to me, and checked in.  We quickly found that there were many Seattle folks in town and many of them moved here to work.  Most of them said it was the sunshine that brought them here and they seemed happy temporarily.  We missed the short briefing they had for the people headed out on our tour because we were milling around the shop, so we just followed the masses.

 

The tour we were on was sponsored by the Pacific Whale Organization, a non-profit working on marine life conservation.  We had a bunch of fun loving young people taking us on our snorkeling experience.

The Ocean Voyager – our mode of transport

Eric was very excited for the trip as you can see.

Eric and I posing for another picture.

Here is the Molokini crater/island that we were snorkeling by.  It is a preserved/reserved area so, full of marine life.

This was Jarron’s first time snorkeling as well.

Our stunt man Eric

This was one of the coolest experiences ever.  It was like we were in our own underwater aquarium hanging with the fish and coral.

After snorkeling for an hour, we got back on the boat and headed off to where the sea turtles hung out.  We were stoked because they guaranteed us turtle sightings and they surely did deliver.

Snorkeler Jireh :)

A sighting in the distance.  Let’s just say I was determined to swim by this guy and I booked over there.  I think I even swam over and kicked some people with my fins just to keep up with this guy.

The water in this area was a little murky and cold so the pics aren’t that great.

I think someone had threw food over board or something because all of a sudden these guys came rushing at me and it was crazy.

My attempt at being a cool underwater photographer.  The sun rays were shining through the water the whole time so I thought let’s try the reverse and shoot upwards out of the water and at the sunshine.

Jarron spotted this guy hiding out in the coral reef.

Some good coral shots by Jarron.

What a fun experience today snorkeling!  Learnt some much, especially breathing through a tube.  Looking forward to more fun as we wrap up our trip.