Snorkeling with the Mantarays

Our second night in Kona we went out with Sea Paradise to snorkel with the gigantic Manta's. They were phenomenal! Three of them came to visit that night, and they come within inches of your face and body! We have tons of video of them, because pictures did not turn out very well in the dark ocean.

 Here's a picture of the sunset...mixed in with construction....I'm a really good photographer, right?

 Our sun burnt faces from a day of fun! This was the same day that we swam with the dolphins and the turtles. (my posts are out of order) It was a full day with marine life!

 This is the face of the manta. They have no teeth and their throats are only as big around as a quarter. They would flip and swirl and twirl right below us. Amazing!

This is how close they got to us!

Kua Bay aka Manini'owali

We are in love with Kua Bay! This is where we swam with 6 wild dolphins!!!
MY LIFE=COMPLETE! When we arrived at the beach there were some locals pointing out into the ocean, so I asked them what they were pointing at. They told us there was a big pod of dolphins not too far off the beach (ok, they were like 3 football fields away...so kind of far). They pointed them out to us and we were so excited that we actually got to see some dolphins. In the back of my mind I kept wondering if that was too far for us to swim (and if we were even supposed to get by the dolphins). About 20 minutes later we were out snorkeling looking for turtles when a small boat pulled up to the dolphins and two girls jumped in the water with them. I told Dan  "we're doing this, lets go!" We swam our little hearts out and within 5-6 minutes we were swimming with dolphins! Oh my gosh it was the coolest thing that has ever happened! I was really worried that the guys on the boat would be upset with us and tell us to go away, but they were so cool and said, "Right place right time. Awesome!"  If the dolphins ever started to swim away from us, the guys would slowly move their boat around and the dolphins would turn around and come back to us. SOFREAKINGAWESOME!!!!!!!!!!! We swam with them for about 10-15 minutes.

 These are my swim noodles. Dan was embarrassed by them....I told him it is less embarrassing to swim with noodles than it is to drown. He agreed. I'm so glad I had them..I would have never made it to the dolphins!

 We missed our baby, so we sent him a note

 Here they are! Can you stand it?!

 Ahhhhhhhh so amazing!

We love Kua Bay!

Hapuna...goin on a turtle hunt

We found some turtles to swim with at Hapuna. So so so fun! One turtle was gigantic! I even held hands with one of them ahhhhhh!

White sands beach

This isn't actually the beach, it's off to the side where we snorkeled. 

I have one picture for you....

Place of Refuge

 Sittin' on tree chairs...the cheesiest!

 This is the inlet where only royalty could pull in with their boats....so naturally, I'm standing there.

 A side ways fire hydrant?....only he would notice such a thing

Captain Cook snorkeling and a Catamaran

This was our last day in Hawaii and it was our first day of actually relaxing...better late than never, right? We went out on a catamaran that took us to Captain Cook Monument. It's supposedly a great snorkeling spot, but unfortunately that day it wasn't so great. There was a big swell coming in so the waters that are normally crystal clear, were murky in some spots. The best part of the whole trip was that there were only 8 of us on the catamaran (which holds 40 people). SO awesome! There was plenty of room to lounge, some even took naps, and they fed us lunch and snacks. They even had nets up front that we could lay on. It was a great way to end our trip. Plus, we even got half price because this was our second "adventure" with them.