This was literally today, you guys. The weather was PERFECT, we only had 30 passengers on the boat compared to the usual 90, and..... WE SAW MELON HEADED WHALES! My marine biologist nerd side really came out today :) How could I not share the epicness?! Not to mention, today was my Friday so I have the next two days off. What a wonderful way to end a work week, am I right! Please ignore my poor video editing skills, these were both shot with my iPhone that I then squashed together on iMovie.
My alarm went off at 6:00 am. My mind instantly thinking "It's Friday, Friday, gettin down on Friday...." you know, that catchy song that went viral by Rebecca Black. As a marine naturalist for the Pacific Whale Foundation, we get to witness some really cool stuff, and some really terrible stuff. Today was a day full of really cool stuff. I arrived at the boat on time in Maalaea Harbor with my fellow crew members, and we started preparing the boat for a day of snorkeling. Everyone was in a good mood because we didn't have a full boat, which meant more time to relax for us and enjoy our work day since it has been an insanely busy and understaffed summer. Sometimes I just need those extra nice days to fully appreciate what I get to do 5 days a week for a job.
The passengers arrived to the boat, we boarded them and handed them their snorkel gear. Some people had never snorkeled before (most people who come on our boats are beginners) so they hesitantly take the mask and fins, looking a little scared and confused. We as crew members reassure them that we are all lifeguard certified, and if there were an Olympic event for snorkeling, we would probably win gold. Every time.
When the passengers are situated, we start the engines, and begin the trip at 8:30 am. It takes about an hour to get to Molokini, shown below. This is a photo I took a few weeks ago on one of those other perfect weather days. Believe it or not, perfect weather all the time is very hard to come by.
Molokini is a pressure release valve connected to Maui's volcano, Haleakala. It formed a tough cone, and the trade winds that rip through the valley of Maui created the crescent shape. Inside Molokini is a coral reef ecosystem full of fish, eels, octopuses, white tip reef sharks, and much more. On the backside of Molokini, there is a coral reef as well, however, the tough cone is a sheer drop off to about 300 feet. Some boats do drift dives, or drift snorkels there since there is no place to tie up the boats. People are dropped off in 300 feet of water, and swim towards Molokini where they start to see the reef below the water's surface.
My boats stay on the inside of Molokini where we snorkel in about 30 feet of water :)
So we get inside Molokini this morning, and the water is perfectly blue and clear, not to mention flat as a lake. We bring everyone into the water, I lifeguard from a surfboard, and hang out for about an hour.
After that hour, we bring everyone back on board and give a coral reef and fish ecology presentation. Today, I gave the fish talk! We like to tell a lot of cheesy fish jokes, and make people try to pronounce Hawaiian fish names, like Humuhumu-nukunuku-apua'a and Lau-wiliwili-nukunuku'oi'oi. While giving the fish talk, the boat is traveling to our second snorkel site on the south shoreline of Maui, where I was in my video at the beginning of this post. The Hawaiian green sea turtle usually stays on the coastline where their food and resting places are, so that's why we take people to two sites.
I honestly can't believe I get paid to do this. Very little might I add, but days like today I'm just in awe of the life I get to live.
After snorkeling with some sea turtles (Honu in Hawaiian), we bring everyone back on board again and serve a barbecue lunch: grilled chicken breasts, hot dogs, and veggie burgers with a three bean and corn salad, and potato macaroni salad for sides. As we left the shoreline of Maui, we saw that a few other boats were stopped ahead of us. The crew instantly knew what was up: either dolphins, or the rare pod of melon headed whales was still around. This pod of 300-400 melon headed whales has been hanging around in shallower waters for the past three days. I haven't seen these in my entire life or in the past year working here, so I was squealing with excitement, anxiously waiting to arrive with the pod. Finally we made it, and it was magical :) It's hard to see in the video, but if you look again towards the end, you can see some of these marine mammals propelling themselves out of the air (breaching) and landing with a big splash.
We hung out with the pod for maybe 20-30 minutes before heading back to the harbor.
We arrived back at the harbor around 1:30 pm, cleaned the boat, and were done by 3:00 pm.
Working for a nonprofit ocean conservation organization is great because there's a valiant mission and vision, and I'm surrounded by people who love the ocean as much as I do. Of course there are rough days, just like any other job, but at the end of the day, I still work on a boat in Maui, and I'm super thankful for that.
Here's some more photos of my underwater adventures, as well as educating the keiki (kids) for one of our programs on the boats, certifying them all as Junior Marine Naturalists.
I also just love turtles so much that I carved my pumpkin last year into a turtle.
And there you have it. Today was more play than work for sure, but I'm thankful for days like today because it makes me fall even more in love with Maui and my life.
Jill
You are very very fortunate, its great that you realise that..BTW the video wouldn't play for me..says private viewing only..Think you need to adjust settings on Youtube
Ah yes it was on private! I just changed it. Hopefully it's viewable now @ukblogger