Turtles in a Half Shell, Hobo Power!

Last day in Maui. But our flight wasn't until 9pm. So we packed up all our stuff into the car, and became hobo's for a day. The day started with a snorkeling trip. But not just to some beach, we took a boat out to a sunken volcano crater! The crater acted as protection against the ocean, and created a reef with all kinds of fish swimming around. Kristen got some great pictures and we had a great time swimming around.

There were a LOT of people who clearly do not live near the ocean or own a pool. They were renting wet suits to people for $10 extra claiming the water was a whole 20 degrees colder than your body temperature!!!... which is 78 degrees. Which anyone who owns a pool will tell you is a fantastic temperature to swim in. You don't need a wet suit! They also had little green floaty tubes you could prop yourself up on... which kind of defeats the purpose of snorkeling. I swear, at least 60% of the people used them. At one point they all managed to make a wall of people who could barely swim, just floating around. I just swam under them when they got in the way.

The company we took the tour with, Pacific Whale Foundation, was fantastic. They got us out there early, before all the crowds hit, and the guides gave us great tips on how to get the best pictures and find the most fish, and everything else. At our second stop, we got to swim with Sea Turtles!! Kristen and I both got pictures with them. If you do this, you really have to be the first person out of the boat. Some of the turtles are pretty shy, and will go into hiding when the rest of your boat empties. If you are lucky, some of them will swim right up to you! One swam right into the middle of our tour group like he was our best buddy. He was also a ninja, because we took our eyes off him for one second and he was gone the next. They don't move very fast, so I don't know how the turtle pulled it off.

The rest of the day was spent getting burnt on a beach. At this point we were living out of our car, but it was a lot of fun. We took our last swims in the pacific, and took a few good naps on a beach. Kristen took her last few shots of palm trees. That was her favorite thing to photograph. It was palm trees and cinder cones. A lot of the public beaches have showers, so we used those to clean off some of the salt, and got into our airplane clothes. On the way back, we satisfied a craving and got ourselves some Pizza the Hutt. Dropped off the car, and then it was finally time to head home...