Maui- Day 4

Today we took a 5 hour snorkel tour with The Pacific Whale Foundation, which I highly recommend if you want to do any kind of a boat tour on Maui.  It's a non profit organization and your money goes towards helping the whales :)  It was a great tour and they also feed you breakfast and lunch on the boat, so that's a good deal too ;)  Hailey said that she felt like she has a little sister as she was holding onto James, keeping him from falling in.  She said she didn't know why.

James is so cute in this picture.  

We traveled about 45 minutes across the sea to the island of Lanai.  We saw many whales along the way.  Lanai, by the way, is a privately owned island with only 3,000 people living on it.  

Brennan took Hailey and Jacob out first to go snorkeling, while I stayed on the boat with James.  

They both got a little freaked out when they realized how deep the water was that they were in.  Hailey kept saying that she was afraid of heights.  Silly kids.  

They were only in the water for about 10 minutes, if that.  

James wanted to hang out in the water, so we hung out on the bottom of the boat where people were getting on and off the boat to snorkel.  Brennan took James into the water for a minute so he could have a turn.  He is starting to like the water now. 

I was the last to go snorkeling.  It was pretty amazing and it made me want to go back to Mexico with just Brennan, since the kids won't snorkel, and do some snorkeling down there.  On this trip, I got to see multiple turtles feeding off of the coral reef and I even heard the whales when I went deeper into the water.  It was incredible.  This will be a trip to remember for the rest of my life and that's what life is all about ;)

Hailey would get her googles on and lay down on that white platform there in the photo and would stick her face in the water to look at the sea turtles down below.  It was pretty cool. 

Right before our time was up, Brennan and I took turns jumping off the boat.  Some guy volunteered to hold James so we could go together.  It took Hailey a long time before she finally got the courage to jump in too. 

The boat even had a slide, which made it fun too, but I preferred jumping.  Hailey went down the slide 3 times.  She is such a fun and adventurous girl. I bet it will only be a few more years until Jacob and Hailey are both fearless little adventurers.  

Ah paradise :)

We were now on our way to see some whales.  

The kids were warming up in the sun.  

It was pretty fun to sit on the edge of the boat and to watch the whales as we steered towards a large group of male whales fighting over a female.  

I learned on this trip that when you see the tale of a whale sticking out of the water, that it's called a fluke. 

We were beyond fortunate to witness this incredible pod of whales.  The crew on the ship said that they hadn't seen anything this incredible and exciting in the four months since whale season started and these people are out touring whales every day.  It started off the coast of Lanai where we were snorkeling and it traveled back to Maui where we started our trip.  I seriously think it was a blessing the way it all happened. We were so lucking that we got to spend every last second of our snorkel trip watching these whales.  There were about 12 male whales fighting over this one female for the rights to mate. We could see whales rolling over each other, slapping each other with their fins and tales, jumping up and landing on top of each other.  Usually the pods aren't this big, but she must have been one good looking whale ;)  You're not supposed to get any closer than 100 yards from the whales, but every once in a while one would pop up right next to our boat and it was truly incredible. 

It was a wild chase and we're so glad we got to see it.  Here a whale is jumping out of the water.  

Once on land, we walked past an old military fort and Jacob thought the real cannons were super cool.  

Jacob's one request for our trip to Maui was to drink out of a coconut.  So today we made it happen.  He took a few sips, but realized he didn't really care for it.  

We laid out and watched the sunset.

After the sunset, we went to the beach where we spent the rest of the night hanging out until it was so dark, we could hardly see anything.  

The kids had fun playing in the ocean, while watching the sea turtles stick their heads out of the water.  It was a good way to end the day.