Dec. 20, 2010

The next day we split into two groups, one to go snorkeling again at Honolua Bay. The other group went back to Black Rock to swim and sun bathe. I was in a Honolua Bay group, along with Josh, Ariel, Dad, and Donna. Once we got there though, the bay was filled with waves and most of the people there were surfers. One man was snorkelling and a surfer going out yelled at him, “No snorkeling when there are waves! I’m sick of dragging dead bodies out of the ocean!” I had already decided that the waves were going to smash me into the sharp rocks if I tried to go in. Josh and Dad still wanted to go in. The snorkeler who came back in though said that the visibility was terrible because of the waves. We turned back. Dad wanted to go back to the hotel, the rest of us went on to Black Rock to hang out with the rest of the group.

The waves were enormous over most of the beach, but towards Black Rock you could swim and snorkel still. We went out for a little while, then just played in the waves. I went over to the big waves though and got a thorough beating against the shore. My hip hurt for the rest of the trip. I do not like big waves. They are very powerful. Josh buried me in sand to make me feel better. Then I had to wash it all off again.

In the evening we went on a whale watching cruise. I highly recommend going on a whale watching cruise in Hawaii at this time of year if our cruise was any indication. We saw six whales (or more). We spent a lot of time watching a mother and her baby. Her baby was playing a lot, partial breaches. The mother was showing off as well, flapping her fins. We couldn’t watch them for too long though, it’s a rule to keep humans from interfering too greatly in the whale’s natural development. We looked for some other whales, and found a few, but none who stuck around very long. Then, as we were just looking around, out to sea I saw (as did some others) a huge whale jump out of the water in a full breach. It was incredible! It was far away but it was still absolutely awesome.

As it got dark we came across another mom and baby. This mom kept flapping her tail into the water with force, our captain said that she might be warning away other whales, or maybe a shark. We never really knew what she was doing, but her baby did it in imitation too, and it was so great. It turned out to be the best whale watch I have been on by far. I had never seen so many things that we saw, and the whales were so active and fun to watch. I did happen to drop both of my camera lens caps into the water though. Oops.