Tuesday, October 18, 2011

My Hawaiian Vacation, Pt. 13

And now, the thrilling conclusion of My Hawaiian Vacation!

Our last day in Hawaii was a very long day, thanks to the fact that our plane didn't leave until after 9 PM. Note to self: never, ever again say, "Yeah, you go ahead and make the travel arrangements. I'm cool with whatever." You will end up booked on a red-eye flight, which is not a pleasant experience for someone who is a) currently on a sleep schedule that involves waking up at very early hours in the morning, and b) completely and utterly incapable of sleeping on a plane. Aaargh. Still, I can't complain too much, because it allowed us to squeeze in what turned out to be one of the absolute highlights of the whole trip: a snorkeling expedition to Molokini. (We had wanted to do it the day before, but they weren't able to schedule us then.)

Molokini is a partially sunken, reef-encrusted crater off the coast of Maui, and there are just no words for how amazing an experience it was to snorkel there. The water was unbelievably, impossibly clear and absolutely teeming with fish. And then, just when I thought I was having the most unbeatable underwater experience of my life, we packed up and moved on to somewhere even more amazing, where we had the opportunity to swim up close and personal with sea turtles. Lots of sea turtles. They weren't shy, either; one of them nearly ran into me on his way up to the surface. They're fascinating animals that before this trip existed for me only in nature documentaries and aquariums, and getting to swim face-to-face with them was incredibly cool, and well worth the price of being exhausted and salt-encrusted on the plane going home.

I have no pictures from this experience, alas, as my camera does not function underwater. My aunt's friend did have an underwater camera, though. Maybe I can get some pictures from her later on. If so, I will be sure to share them with you.

And that's it! The end! I now return you to your regularly scheduled blog posts about whatever the heck I'm usually posting about.

4 comments:

  1. completely and utterly incapable of sleeping on a plane.
    That's more time to read!

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  2. It is! Except that, 1) I always feel guilty about keeping my light on when everybody else is trying to sleep, and 2) it is possible to reach a point of exhaustion where even I cannot focus on words on a page. :)

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  3. Finally caught up on your Hawaii posts. Glad you had such a great time!

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