SO close.
spinner dolphins defying gravity. this happened in the open water! and it wasn't even an organized dolphin tour - just a casual snorkeling adventure on my own in honaunau bay, big island =D. (lars unfortunately couldn't come with me because he was down with the flu - and after this i was, too, but yeah, it was worth it ;D)
the dolphin pod circled us snorkelers for more than an hour - they came SO CLOSE! it was hard to say goodbye again. they are so curious and playful, gorgeous creatures!
snorkeling on the kajak tour
while snorkeling and waiting for the exact moment the turtle comes up to breathe i envisioned this picture to be as awesome as the ones you see in advertising campains for the maledives: the turtle's head sticking out of the water, right in front of a lovely island setting, the turtle's body underwater, surrounded by an awesome coral garden.
well, this might have been a bit ambitious for a 10-bucks-disposable-camera. nice try though ;D
...at least you can see the turtle head if you look really closely....
after we unfortunately didn't encounter any turtles on our molokini/lanai-snorkel cruise with our (one-day-only) rental digital underwater camera, we decided to give it another shot:
so we bought a disposable underwater cam at the ABC store and headed to honolua bay, a gorgeous snorkel spot in west maui where we had seen a bunch of huge turtles before - hoping that our buddies will show up again...and they did not disappoint us =)
we raise you: HONU, the hawaiian green sea turtles! plus some nice coral gardens and a family of squid in lo-fi quality :D
green sea turtle in honolua bay - maui's best snorkeling spot.
one more dive at the shores of lanai.
we rented an underwater camera from the whale foundation for the snorkel cruise - for 30 bucks including a CD of the pics. that was money well spent!
unfortunately we saw no turtles that day (though we saw them almost EVERY other time we've been snorkeling) but it was amazing anyway. the colorful sea life and the coral reefs are just so otherworldly beautiful. as soon as you're under the surface a whole new world unfolds. it's so peaceful and surreal...words just can't describe it. i literally spend half of our maui vacation under water....just floating and watching.
oh how i'd love to be back in the warm pacific right now..