Most of our time is spent on the windward side of Oahu. It’s where we live because of its proximity to work, but it’s always where we feel more comfortable. It’s rural, local, and very Hawaiian. And due to the fact that we have now spent over 5 years on an island, any long car trips just about kill us. (Long=anything over half an hour.) So we don’t venture across the mountains very often. But we did for Ko-olina, a beach our friends told us about, and it didn’t disappoint. Giant rainbows arched through the sky for much of the morning last weekend, and turtles came in over the reefs to swim around us.
We had talked to the boys about the possibility of seeing turtles, and Eliot was single minded as soon as his little feet hit the sand. “Turtles?” he asked. “Turtles here?”
Sometimes, when we realize how much we hate, say, 35 minute car trips, we wonder if our world has shrunk. But it’s hard to believe that too much when we live in a place like Hawaii. Even after we’ve been here for a few years now, we can still find places to surprise us.
And turtles always surprise us too, with their algae covered shells and their swift, comfortable swimming in places where we would thrash and flounder. They live in the vast open ocean, rarely coming to shore, but often coming close enough to brave the sharp volcanic reefs with the rising waves.
They surprise us in the graceful way their heads emerge for a couple seconds and a quick breath, and then immediately dip back under, as if that is where they wanted to be all along. Unafraid and careless, they often head straight towards someone and then turn at the last second before collision.
In Okinawa, I looked everywhere I went for turtles and never saw one. Once, in the offshore islands, I nearly hyperventilated because something round looked exactly like a turtle, but was instead a piece of cardboard that did not belong.
My first sea turtle sighting was onshore at Laniakea on the North Shore, but my closest real encounter was when a giant one, larger than my torso, slowly and ploddingly swam under my surf board after one of the hardest physical days in my life. He was so confident in his strength and girth that he actually lifted me and my board up a fraction of an inch as he scraped under. He did not see the point in swimming deeper to avoid me.
We leave soon, but I hope we’ve learned these lessons well: assurance in the navigation of giant waters, audaciousness in approaching strangers and strange places, fearless in the ocean depths, and so much confidence in one’s weight that a possible collision is not deadly.
Bailey Suzio says
What amazing pictures!
dananicoleboyer@gmail.com says
Thank you!