Hawaii: Whale watching

Before we left for Hawaii, Kelly said that all he wanted to do was see a whale and he'd be happy. Well, we saw SO MANY whales while we were there that I don't think we would want to go back to Hawaii again unless it was whale season. They were everywhere!!

Our first experience with a whale was on Tuesday when we went ocean kayaking. I couldn't believe how far out in the ocean we went! We were 20 feet away when a whale came up between our kayak and another kayak. I was scared to death!!!! I couldn't even appreciate the fact that we had just come that close to a whale because I was so freaked out! Looking back now though, it was pretty darn cool. :)

On Thursday we went on a snorkeling excursion on the Kai Kanani. We saw so many whales that day! There were several "competition groups" which is when several males fight with each other to win over the lady whale. It's really hard to get a good picture because they are up and out of the water and then back in before you know it.
Here you can see some whales between the two boats:
These are the kind of kayaks we were in when the whale came up beside us. We were much, much closer to the whale than the kayaks in this picture. :)
We sailed out to the island of Molokini to snorkel and then came back closer to shore to snorkel with the sea turtles.

Kind of hard to see, but this was a jellyfish we saw as we were sailing by.