Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Day 2, snorkle trip

What a fantastic experience! They loaded everyone up, about 80 folks in all, at 7ish. Dan and I felt all special because we were members (the only 2), so we got to board first.




The Pacific Whale Foundation is dedicated to preserving the marine life in the Pacific and educating folks. It felt really good knowing our tour was Eco-friendly, they even provided us with reef friendly sun screen. The staff is really knowledgeable, there were 4 naturalists on board along with the captian and 2 voulenteers. Tiffany, one of the naturalists, is my new she-ro. I'm guessing she's about 25, majored in biology in California, and is now explaining to the tourists what types a fish we saw, in a kayack making sure everyone is safe, diving 50 feet down to secure the boat, and helping dock the boat. On her days off, she teaches scuba. She is so happy and it shows. As we left I told her she was my new she-ro and she said to look her up when we move here. On the way out we had breakfast served to us while the crew explained what to expect. First, we went to Molokini Crater, a crater that was formed by a volcanic explosion. It's crecent shaped and provides a shelter from preadators for the fish. It is a bird sanctuary for the Frigate bird, they can go out to sea and stay in the air for 2 or 3 weeks, not landing once. Underneath was a beautiful coral reel teeming with tropical fish, imcluding a white mouth moray eel. We got to snorkle for an hour. One the way to our next destination, I learned that the Parrot fish poops sand. One Parrot fish will poop one ton of sand in a year and 25% of the beach sand is Parrot fish poop! Then we headed over to Turtle Town. There are 2 long fingers of lava flow with the most amazing coral reef. We saw a lot if turtles, just floating, watching and hanging out with them. There was a white tipped shark (they are docile), but we didn't get to see it. On the way back Dan had 2 hotdogs and 2 maitais and I had a veggie burger and 2 blue Hawaiians. After a shower to wash all the salt water off (my lips still feel like I've been eating sunflower seeds all day) we are heading back over to Maalaea to check out the auqarium.

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