Swimming with Turtles (from Hawaii)

I'm a big fan of sea turtles.
When I'm in Hawaii, I set aside a portion of time to look for them, on land and in the water.

On this trip, I didn't have to look too hard.
We went to the Four Seasons one night for dinner, and found two turtles resting on the beach.

I enjoy finding them on the shore.
There's something reassuring about these quiet, zen-like critters that makes me feel good.
But... there's not a whole lot of action.

For action, you need to go underwater.

This guy was found offshore of Kona.
It was early. There were not many snorkelers there, so the turtles were pretty comfortable around us.

The visibility was excellent, so we swam with three turtles for about two hours.
We also saw moray eels and a ton of fish.

Interestingly, I was doing a workbook excercise a few weeks ago.
In the exercise, I was listing my favorite things to do. In the process, I discovered that snorkeling was in my top 5.
I was pretty surprised by this. I mean, I knew I liked snorkeling, but I would hardly have put it in the top 5.

Going on this trip, I thought, "we'll see if it really is that important to me".

Well, turns out it is!