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Monday, October 22, 2012

Snorkeling adventures

Living on an island, we have some excellent places for snorkeling, and scuba diving.  I haven't found a dive certified friend, so I haven't done any dives yet.  However, I've gone out snorkeling several times.  Maui is unique since we have several islands just off shore, including the crater of Molikini.  This is a small, half-moon shaped island about an hour off-shore that offers some excellent diving!  I managed to convince a couple of my friends from work to book a tour on a boat two weeks ago, and we had a total blast out snorkeling.
The boat pulled out of the dock around 7:30 am on Saturday, which made for a rather early start to my weekend.  It was about an hour boat ride, and we spent several hours in the water.  They fed us a delicious breakfast, and a rather early kalua pork sandwich for lunch.  I think I had just as much fun with the boat ride as I did with the actual snorkeling!
Me and my friend Sophia on the boat.
We rented an underwater camera, and we went crazy taking all kinds of awesome pictures!


We went for a little drive around the crater
On the way back to the harbor, we stopped to spot some sea turtles.
We saw several, but it was hard to get a good picture.
 I've been out snorkeling a couple of other times just off the beach.  I've ran into these huge turtles on different occasions, and they are actually really fun to swim with.  They are probably as big as I am, and despite the fact that they are very docile, their size sometimes makes me a bit nervous.  I followed one of the turtles around for about ten minutes before I finally got bored.

The next day was Sunday, and it also happened to be General Conference.  This was an interesting experience for me, since I usually have a big breakfast and watch conference with a bunch of friends.  Since I have moved, I didn't get to do that this year.  Also, due to the time difference, Conference started at 6 am for us here in the islands!  Unfortunately I was mostly unconscious for the morning session, but once I woke up I spent the day baking delicious cinnamon rolls, and listening to Conference on the internet.  It was wonderful!