Pssst…I think I’ve started a new love affair. (giggle) Oh, don’t worry, everything is good on the home front, we’re solid. In celebration of our wedding anniversary, we recently spent a week in Maui snorkeling, relaxing, enjoying the food and even napping.

On one of the snorkeling adventures, as the water began to get really choppy and we were getting chilly, we headed back to shore. Suddenly, a dark blob drifted by a short distance in front of me. It dove below the surface, a large turtle! Fascinated, I watched it poke around the rocks, even scrape at them. Then it turned and slowly,

gracefully, swam right under me! Beautiful and amazing. Other people were swimming after it, but it swam right under me...that’s some kind of sign isn’t it?

It was a perfect moment!

The ocean is so full of life all around us. We also saw needlefish, at first just one or two and eventually a large school of them, each one long, slender like a…well, like a needle. There were large black fish, also in schools, swimming among the rocks, sometimes being chased away by smaller fish. We heard the shrimp crackling and the parrotfish crunching on the rocks.

I love the multiple sensations of snorkeling; feeling the water as well as floating on it; seeing the beautiful colors, the movement of fish and the effects of the surge of the tide; hearing the tiny sounds of water hitting my head, the larger sound of the surf and the Darth Vader sound effects within my mask; the smell of the salt water; and the even the taste that makes me gag occasionally. You can’t beat the experience! I'm in love with snorkeling.