Page Ohana: Whale Watch 2018

We have gone on a whale watch every year since we moved here. There is just something so fascinating about these majestic mammals. I look forward to their arrival every year.

This year was a special year for us.
We got a private whale watch with some very good friends of ours on their sail boat.

Meet the Barrett's.
This is CarolAnn. She is one of my very best friends.

This is Ted. He's pretty cool, too.

He's our boat captain.

Here are our family's together.

They are part of our swim family. We see them almost everyday, our kids are all good friends, CarolAnn is one of my very best friends. Afton and TJ have traveled to many off island meets together to compete which makes them good friends. They are so good for each other in the pool, too. They push each other and have a healthy level of competition with each other.

Ted and CarolAnn met in Lahania almost twenty years ago. They were both working on the same boat. They got married and decided Maui was going to be their home.
And Ted is a sailer. He has a side job where he does fiberglass on boats...I'm not a sailer, so I'm not really sure what that means, but he works on boats when he's not at his firefighter job.
Ted even competes in Sailing competitions. He loves it and he's teaching his children, as well.
CarolAnn used to be a scuba instructor and loves the ocean as well. She is also, the board president of our swim team. She is super involved in giving her kids the best life and the most opportunities. They are a Maui family through and through.

We headed out to Lahaina Harbor in the morning to load the boat and were out on the water most of the day.

We were all so excited as this was our first time on a sail boat like this. Well, all except Afton, she has been out with them before.
You can just see the excitement in Koa's face.

Koa's ready to for the adventure.

Right off, we saw whales breaching...

(Whales ? with and S ? yep. keep scrolling.)

We could hardly contain our excitement. We have only ever seen them breach far, far away that we couldn't really see it. And even though this was far away, it was still so much closer than we'd ever seen before. It was going to be a great day!

Then the baby whale breached...
yep, the BEST day!

So, this little puff of water that you see coming from the whale is what we look for when we go out on whale watches. Everyone is scanning and they let the captain know which direction by the front of the boat being 12 on the clock. So we will say 10:00 or 2:00 when we see the spout.

There were several whales in this pod. You can see the tail of one and the fin of another.
So much activity and excitement going on in the water.

And so much power in that tail.

This ones a little blurry. bummer.

Hi Brin.. she snuck her "eyebrow" in this pic.

Greg hung out by the sail. Best spot on the boat, he'd say.
Oh look, his shirt says what Ted does. Ha! Fiberglassing, repair, painting, restoration. There you go.

These two. Always finding something to play.
Love them.

We sailed over by Olowalu and TJ dove down about 30 feet to anchor the boat to an anchor that had been placed down there.
We snorkeled and oh man the coral was so beautiful. She healthy and full of life. I'm pretty sure I have some go pro videos that I'll have to find.

Also, on our way to this spot, Ted threw a line out behind the boat. Then, the kids jumped or dove off of the front of the boat and before they knew it were grabbing the line at the back of the boat. I did it too. It was a little scary at first, but so much fun.