photographers go with Captain Dan McSweeny....so shouldn't you?" Unable to argue with the foolproof logic, we shelled out the steep ticket cost and boarded Captain Dan's boat.Taylor was skeptical about going whale watching again, as we have g
one in San Diego (to see the California grey whales) the last two years, and I'm always a bit disappointed. They grey whales are always "traveling," so they are swimming and breathing, and that's it. To me, they seem like they are in a hurry, and its not exciting to watch. I was hoping the humpbacks would be different, since the last time I saw them (off the coast of Boston) they were feeding and playing and being super entertaining!The humpbacks come to the Hawaiian waters to breed and have their babies in the safe, warm, relatively shallow waters. All week we had been spotting quick glimpses of them (at least 10 whales from the car! and we saw 2 pairs briefly while on our way to dive sites), but I was really anxious to find them while in a boat and get close! Captain Dan aimed us north, and we hugged the coast in search of whales.
After about an hour of no whales (or dolphins...or marine mammals of any kind...) he began announcing that we were approaching the "hot zone" for whales, a shallow shelf in the ocean where the mom's like to bring the baby whales. We were watching for a long time and didn't see anything....until I saw what I thought was a spout. It was between the boat and the shore, and I pointed and asked Taylor to watch the spot with me. I wanted to make sure it wasn't a wave breaking on the rocks or something before I yelled to the Captain. Sure enough, I saw it again, so I yelled to the Captain.
Taylor was SUPER skeptical, and thought I was just seeing the breakers, but I was pretty sure it looked like a spout and then a tail - but I'm pretty blind these days and it was REALLY far away, so I was a little hesitant. The Captain navigated us to where I thought I saw the whale, and I turned on my camera, and we all sat and waited....and waited...and waited.....
All of a sudden, directly in front of, at 12 o'clock of the bow of the boat, a huge humpback whale LEPT OUT OF THE WATER AND BREACHED!!!! He got ALL THE WAY OUT of the water, from head to tail, and came crashing down with a GIGANTIC splash!!! He was only a couple hundred yards in front of the boat, and it was one of the MOST AWESOME things I have ever, ever seen. I was freaking giddy! I was punching Taylor, and jumping around in circles yelling "I told you so!" - but the absolute best part was that I actually got a picture of it! In focus, lens cap
off, high shutter speed, and everything!!! So lucky!!!!
We watched the whale surface, breathe, and dive a few times, when another whale surfaced behind the boat. They both disappeared under water for a while (10 minutes feels like forever when you are on a boat full of tourists whole are totally silent and you are staring at perfectly still ocean) so I asked the Captain to break out the underwater m
icrophones I had seen advertised. Sure enough, one whale was SINGING! If you have never heard a humpback sing, its pretty neat. It gave me goosebumps to stand there on the boat and hear this whale singing to his buddies right underneath us! I even got a video of it :)I was completely ecstatic and totally captivated by the whale songs, but Captain Dan decided to head back towards home "to see what else we could find." We never saw another whale, but we did run into a pod of spinner dolphins at the mouth of the harbor. Dan seemed hurried, and navigated the boat past the
m almost without stopping, so I tried to get a few pictures of them. The spinner dolphins are so much fun because they jump clear out of the water and do flips and spins, just for the fun of it!
I was annoyed that he didn't linger and let us watch the dolphins, but on the way into the boat slip we saw 2 giant sea turtles in the water, too :) We got off the boat, got into the car, and I drove to the point of land just outside the marina that overlooked the mouth of the harbor - you could see the dolphins from there!! I snapped what felt like 1,000 pictures of them playing and flipping and chasing fish before I thought Taylor would die of boredom in the car. But they were so cool!
We went back to the condo, had some leftover pizza from the day before, and tried to figure out
what to do with the rest of our day.....we thought we were going to want to relax and take a nap after all the early mornings, but for some reason we decided to go explore. We found out that Hawaii's only chocolate farm was just across the highway from the resort, so after our quick lunch we headed out to find it! What's more motivating than 
a tour of a candy factory?!We got a little turned around and had some difficulty finding the place, and ended up calling to figure out exactly where it was....we were in what seemed like a residential area. Sure enough, the very small factory was close, but it was only open on Wednesday and Friday mornings for tours, so we scheduled our tour for the very next morning. Left with no plan, we decided just to go on a scenic beach drive around the resort. We had barely explored the area around the condo since we arrived, and this was our last night in the place!
We drove down to the beach and strolled along a black sand cove - looking out into the water I immediately spotted 4 big sea turtles! They were lazily floating in the clear, shallow water and eating the algae of the rocks. They are so wise and old looking - and when they come up for air 
they definitely look you straight in the eye. I took a ton of pictures before Taylor finally dragged me away. I think he knew I wanted to go swim with them and probably didn't want to have to bail me out of a Federal prison for harassing endangered species ;)We
walked through a few beach parks and took in the scenery. It was a hot, beautiful day, and our last full day on the Kona (west) side of the island. We went back to the condo, packed up our things, and made a big dinner for our last night in the condo. We ate on the balcony and drank the wine we had picked up from the Volcano Winery! It was great with the teriyaki chicken Taylor grilled for us.It was bittersweet to think about leaving the condo - I was excited
to go to the other side of the island and explore, but it meant we were nearing the end of the trip :( But we had a great dinner, and a great day of fantastic whale watching, and dolphin and turtle encounters, and a relaxing afternoon. We got all our things together and went to sleep - and it definitely put a smile on my face knowing the only thing I had to get up for was chocolate tasting!
See all the pictures here: http://kristynspictures.shutterfly.com/5057?startIndex=100
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