Whales, whales, whales

We started out today at Poipu beach, getting a little sun, doing a little snorkeling and watched a couple of monk seals yell at each other. I thought we were going to see them throw down, but cooler heads prevailed and they both went for a swim. Of course, they are swimming right where all of the people are swimming, so I watch a nine year old girl do the best water sprint I had ever seen trying to get out of the seals path. There are volunteers all over the beach that rope off the area the seals are beached so you can't get too close, but your still only 10 feet or so away. Once the seal hits the water, all the volunteers can do is start yelling at the people and wave their arms, but if you are a first time tourist, you might think they were just showing you the hula. That is until you see a 3oo pound seal barring down on you. Can they smell urine in the water? We snorkeled and saw some pretty cool fish, but you'll have to wait until we develop the under water camera to see those. I got my ass beat by the waves, coral and my snorkel gear. If you've walked with fins before, you know you need to walk backwards once you hit the water so you don't trip over you fins or have a wave use it as a rudder and change your direction for you. That method works out fine if you are walking in sand. The water here has about 2 feet of sand and then its rocks/coral. Lets just say walking backwards is not that easy. I'm sure I looked like I was being stabbed in the feet while I was walking, which in fact, I was. That shit hurt my feet. I tried to just lay out and swim, but the water wasn't very deep so when the waves went out I scrapped my ding ding on the rocks below, not fun. We finally got out into some decent water, I drank a little salt water, but we got to see some fish, big ones too. After a few minutes, Marcy's mask was leaking, so I gave her mine and I put on hers, which proceeded to come undone while I had my face in the water, so I nearly drown. If we hadn't been in 3 feet of water, this may have been a frightening story, but alas, not so scary. I decided I had been beaten by the waves enough and went to shore to try and fix the mask. Marcy stayed out for a while longer, then came in and we went to lunch. I had read about a Puka dog, plus had gotten a good review from Roxanne, so we headed to the Poipu Beach mall to pick one up for me. They hollow out a bun, not sure how they did that, stuck in a polish sausage, then you could get a relish of your choice, I chose mango. The other choices were other fruit relishes, but mango sounded the best to me. Anyway, Chad, if you like dogs, Puka dog is your kind of place. That was good, maybe better than a chili slaw dog from El Paso. Now we start to drive north, past the airport and up along the coast. We stopped at an "Scenic overlook" which if you see one, we learned, it's worth the stop. Here is a shot of us at the first one. We also hit a waterfall.And another scenic overlook.Then, we headed to a lighthouse. On the point where this lighthouse sits, is a good place to see whales and it wasn't long until we could see the whales blowing air/water through there blow holes. Look hard, you can see them.Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a whale breach the surface by about ten feet, so I spun around and snapped this, look on the far left of the picture.

OK, I'll admit, it's a crappy picture of the very end of the breach, but that was the best I could get. I stood there for another ten minutes trying to get something better, but it didn't happen. This same whale breached a few more times, but I was never able to catch it. Take my word for it, it was awesome. Here are a few shots of this park.

We finished up with another overlook.

Tomorrow looks like a hike and a sunset, stay tuned.