Whales

Over the last few days we've seen amazing sights and adventured to our hearts' content (mostly). Today held a very special surprise that would have been missed had I not been too tired to hold up my 1,000+ page tome (heavy).

After a morning of work-type computer activity at Lava Java over tasty yerba mate, a visit to a beach was deemed mandatory. The Civic whisked us up the coast to Kua Bay where half the beach seemed lost to large pounding surf. Fortunately, the spot we seemed to lay in most times we go (oft ignored by others I guess because it's away from the water access?) remained open and we plunked down. A hot sun shone down on me and I twitched between writing in my journal and laying on my back to stare at the large crashing waves, letting the booming wash over me. It's amazing how the various blue hues in the water still shine forth as waves rise, and crash over in mighty tubes. Gorgeous and awesome. Out beyond the bay whitecaps scarred the ocean out into the horizon.

I began seeing splashes out of the corners of my sleepy eyes. Splashes much larger than the day's norm. Waking up a bit to take more notice a large splash in front of my eyes woke me completely and I began poking Candace in the shoulder, asking for her opinion on the source. My thought was whales, but perhaps dolphins. For a while she helped me look but saw nothing. Finally I got a clear look at a huge humpback whale breaching! From then until we left just before dusk our eyes stayed trained up and down the ocean looking for signs of the beasts.

I saw whales years ago when I visited Kaua'i. From the beach their spouting barely registered. This time the action was much closer. Not only did we see them spouting, but they could be seen twirling as they breached most of their bodies out of the water. We saw their backs as they dove after spouting. The closest action gave us a view of their massive flukes smashing the water. My greatest excitement came while watching a couple of them smashing their huge pectoral fins repeatedly onto the surface of the ocean.

I'm still smiling as I write this, as it was nothing I'd witnessed before and it was incredible. Maybe one day I'll see it closer up, but today's action was perfect for now. Tomorrow we may head back out and try to see more action. I didn't even try to get a picture today, maybe tomorrow I will. Wish me luck!