washersnotdryers: Back to Hawaii- Swimming with Sea Turtles

After our wedding in June and our world-wide reception tour, Andrew and I spent our honeymoon in Hawaii- in Maui and Oahu. While in Maui our favorite activity was a kayak tour where we got to row out and swim with sea turtles. SO FUN! Andrew and I just got our pictures from our super cool tour guide Brandon- from Gig Harbor, Wa (small world, huh?) so we wanted to share them with everyone, cause they're sooooo cool!

I hate snorkelling, I'm afraid of fish and coral, but I loved seeing the sea turtles. They were so soft and graceful, just swimming in the water, hanging out. Seeing them was totally relaxing and I just wanted to get in their world, live as they lived, just on the beach and in the sun. If I was a sea turtle I'm convinced that life would be easy and the worst that could happen is that some dumb tourist would try to grab my shell. I would love to just fly through the surf and hang out in some caves.

Here are some cool coral pictures, Andrew loved seeing the coral and looking for eels and octopi. He saw all sorts of fish and practiced his diving- he really did get pretty far down there.

The black ball coral thing suctions to the bottom of the ocean- it is also apparently very delicious in sushi.

The red pointy pencil looking ones have big sucker things on the bottom of it that clings to the coral or your hand. Andrew thought the coral and stuff was the bees knees. I gracefully refrained from touching it...or getting too close. The ocean is where nightmares come to life. I don't want to get eaten by a coral.

Here we are before the tour. Look how cute we are. It was a three hour tour, but since there was no skipper, Gilligan, millionaires, professors, or girls named Maryann we were totally ok.

Row Row Row your boat. Gently down the stream!!!! Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream!!!

The weather was absolutely beautiful. The tour started off at 8:00 in the morning while the sun was shining and there was no wind whatsoever. The water was a little tiny bit chilly, but as long as you kept moving around it was great. The coolest thing that we don't have a picture of is how deep dark blue the color of the water here is. It is the prettiest color of deep indigo I've ever seen in an ocean.

I stayed at the very top of the water- no diving past the creepy coral and freaky fish for me. When there was a turtle though, I very happily followed him along. I got about 3 feet from one of them and then I hastily got out of his way.

Look at Andrew- the little diving man himself!

Please note the look of horror on my face. Please also note the look of pure delight on Andrew's face. This is how we snorkel.

The brown spotted thing in the middle of the coral is an eel. Cool beans! I didn't see it, but Andrew did.

Hooray for snorkeling. I'm pretty sure that my little snorkel mask had teeth marks in it, cause my jaw was certainly sore since I kept clenching every time I got too close to the coral. I am a big wimp, however I am very proud of myself for going out there, and even better, I have very very fond memories of swimming with Andrew and the turtles.