Fauna

The Humpback whales gave us quite a show.  It is mating season for these great mammals and they love to come to this place after having the feeding of their lives near Alaska. The water between Lanai, Molokai and Maui was teeming with these magnificent creatures. We saw moms with babies, pairs of whales and loners just showing off.

Our journey from Maui to Lanai took longer than normal since when you get within 100 yards of the whales you are supposed to stop and wait.

Well, we did a lot of stopping and waiting.

And it was so worth it. Take a look.

Oh, we were escorted by a school of spinner dolphins too - happy to be swimming along and posing for all the photographers on board.  They say we only really see about 1/3 of the whole group of dolphins. And we saw dozens at a time jumping up in pairs and even in threes as you see here.

 Imagine how many were just beneath the water that we didn't see!

 

Wait, how did this one get in here? This is the cutest 15 month old nephew and local Hawaiian host I have ever seen.

Sorry about that. He's just too adorable not to include in this post.

Back to the fauna.

We saw these little guys on the beginning of a rain forest like hike up to a water fall back on Oahu. More on that later, but I couldn't pass up the chance to capture these. Reminded me of being back on the farm. The one that I visit, not live on.

Gorgeous animals all around. Like the MN zoo, but without the tanks and 6 inch glass separating you from the bottlenose dolphins you paid $11 per adult and $9 per child to see.

We got to see these for free.

Well, almost for free.

The whole trip was a little more than free.

But it was worth it.