Turtle Sightings
We went to Baby Beach today. We wanted to go snorkling with the kids, and Baby Beach came recommended by friends (thanx E and L!). The location was close to our hotel, the waves calm, the water fairly shallow and there’s a bit of coral and fish to keep things interesting.
Unintentionally Storm and I ended up drifting away from Shane and Griffin. But we had fun regardless. We saw an awesome looking puffer fish, a family of (something yellow), and there came a point I said “I want the camera”. At this point Griffin was now up on the shores building walls of sand (remember when I said our kids were perfectly content just playing in the sand while at the beach?) and Shane was off exploring the edge of the reef.
I took a break and went up to grab it and so glad I did… because upon our return to the water we came across this gentle giant.
I was the guide, and as the adult in this relationship fully reserved my freak-out to my insides when I saw a very large shadow come up ahead of us. Thankfully, and amazingly, that large shadow turned into a turtle. It was literally crossing our path, and Storm and I followed. It was incredible, although a bit nerve wrecking, because as much as I wanted to stay at a fairly respectable distance, the current brought us closer, and then the turtle did a complete 360 to face us. We didn’t get in contact, but we swam literally right over it.
The part I find somewhat amusing is that just the day before we did a snorkeling boat ride out to Molokini Island and Turtle Town just so that we can see a turtle. The kids were over the water portion of the program right after Molokini and wanted to just stay on deck for the Turtle Town visit. From the whole visit there was indeed a turtle sighting. Just one turtle (I guess Turtle Down is like being at the Olympics for the hosting town residents — you stay away unless you gotta be there?). So they saw no turtles and I was really disappointed for them. I wasn’t expecting this meeting, which is what made it even so much more special. But you see, I wanted them to have that experience. Bummed G is a turtle sighting short, but at least my ONE wish for this Maui trip has been realized. Turtle spotted 🙂 Hoping G will get lucky too.
Our visit was no longer than 3 minutes, we let the turtle get it’s lunch in peace and continued on.
The kids got a big intro to snorkeling in that we never get in contact with the reef, and while pointing is fine, touching is not. He did so awesome! You can hear our squeals in the video, but though the current pushes us close to this guy (or gal???) there was no turtle touching.
Storm is genuinely doing so great in the water! Yes, the salt helps with buoyancy a ton, but this kid kept going for almost a full hour with barely any rest, and no freak-outs about not touching the bottom — this is not the Storm I meet in the pool! So proud of this dude. To be honest, what I’m really excited about is the prospect that he and Shane will have this activity to share together. I can tell G enjoys it, but not to the level I’m seeing Storm get into it. Maybe Shane will get a SCUBA diving buddy after all. As long as Shane doesn’t mention anything about sharks, that is — think Storm’s inherited his irrational fear of those predators from me 🙂
[…] to hang at work, through my body is REALLY not ready to be back from vacation? Where did we go? My Turtle Sightings post was a spoiler, but we’ve just spent about 5 days in Maui. I’m not ready to be back to life as usual, […]