Hawaii

I haven't posted in a while, though I'm not really sure why. I guess these things come in ebbs and flows.

We're just back from two weeks in Hawaii, which was amazing. I was really pleased to see so much wildlife this time around. Maybe it's just a coincidence, but I felt like there were a lot more dolphins, turtles, etc. to be seen than I ever remember as a child / teenager.

Our condo and its tiny stretch of beach offered up some of the best sightings. We sat on our lanai and watched a huge pod of Hawaiian spinner dolphins leaping by gleefully, silver missiles exploding from the sea, twisting like a figure skater on an axis, and then arcing gracefully back into the water. We snorkeled off the beach with green sea turtles whose shells were easily 3.5 feet across. We even saw -- and this is a first for me, in almost thirty years of steady visits to Hawaii -- a monk seal playing off the beach.

He was about twenty feet out to sea, and very aware of being watched. His behaviour was as hilarious as it was bizarre: he was harassing puffer fish until they inflated, then slapping them around and playing with them like water balloons. He was at it for an hour or more. Initially he decided that the first fish wasn't big enough, so he puffed up another and left the first to float miserably away, utterly helpless. Still, the first fish got off lightly -- there's no way Fish #2 survived the monk seal seizing it by the tail and slapping it roughly off the water, only to dive after it and do it again. No idea whether this is a known behaviour, or whether it was recreation or food related. Great fun to watch, though!