We swam with critters!
Dolphins
The Dolphin Arena was right outside our hotel balcony on Kona, so we got to watch them play around at night. Finally, we got to swim with them! They are such awesome creatures. You just wanna kiss 'em! My favorite was a pink dolphin :) but I forget her name. Lina was scared to go in the water because of all the little fish in the water for the dolphins to "play" with. We were given snorkels to watch the dolphins swim below us. We gave commands. We got splashed by the dolphins. It was so much fun. Our trainer/guide was missing all three middle toes on his right foot. We affectionately refer to him as "Shaka-Toes."
We took video of the whole thing, but not very many pictures :( Oh well.
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Sharks
I was quite nervous about this one. Why?: 1.) Sharks 2.) I get sea-sick.
We all downed some Dramamine and got on the boat. It was the 6 of us pictured above and 6 others. 2 couples and a Mother/daughter. All I can say is "THANK HEAVENS!" I took that Dramamine. As soon as we got on the boat we had to sign waivers and were told several times that most people get sick out there on the ocean. Great. It was pretty rough getting out there, but still fun. Once we stopped though, we were pitching and rolling like crazy. The mother/daughter duo was not doing so hot. My family was all pretty good.
While the captain steered the boat close to the floating cage, the deckhand had to rope it like a cowboy, pull it in and then tie it together. He then lowered a ladder type thing to get into the floating cage. Yikes!
We let the other 6 people go first (hehe). Actually, we volunteered them.
We were so excited when it was our turn. But a little terrified as well. Everyone in the first group (minus the mother/daughter who kept yelling from the cage, "Can we come back!?" They didn't even look in the water. They just held onto the cage. haha) told us it was awesome and not scary. One girl--a little hippie-ish--said it was a "spiritual experience." Now I don't know about that. But it was pretty cool.
No life-jackets. Just snorkel stuff. Trapped in a steel cage. Open at the top.
I asked the deckhand, "What if a shark jumps over the rail and comes into the cage!?"
He said it wouldn't happen. But he did say that barracudas sometimes come through the bars. Great.
(the above picture isn't of us, but this is what it looked like underwater! crazy huh?!)
We climbed into the cage one by one and the water was freezing.
It was also choppy and we each had to hold onto the bars to keep the cage from smacking us in the head.
(It happened to me once. Ouch :)
Though I was shaking from the cold, the experience was great. Sharks were swimming all around the cage. I really wanted to reach through the bars to touch one, but the deckhand had said no. And for good reason I'm sure. Surprisingly, the sharks weren't that scary. It was cool. Now the barracudas, on the other hand, are from the devil. They are the scariest looking things I've ever seen. Evil. Don't like them.
We had an underwater camera with us but those pictures haven't been developed yet. It was difficult just to take pictures, because it was so choppy in the water and the cage could smack you if you didn't hold on with two hands. Brittany, Lina and I stayed near each other the whole time. It was funny to look up from the water and see their goggled faces staring back with the waves crashing around us.
Good memories.
Afterwards, we all felt a titch woozy. Don't let the picture fool you, that water had been rough. The Dramamine is the only thing that saved us from hanging over the edge of the boat the whole time.
But the after-effects were a nightmare. Everyone was suuuuppper tired and crraaaaaanky. It's funny to look back at how out-of-it we all were. Lina yelled angrily once, "I'm freezing!!!!" hahaha. It was like she was 4 again. She was not a happy camper. Or shark-cage-swimmer I guess.
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