6:13am on January 12, Josey and I were practically thrown out of bed by a loud crashing noise (our room is crazy susceptible the noises coming from the engine room… sounds like thunder). But we weren’t annoyed because we were too busy screaming because we could see a skyline. WE SAW LAND. We bounced around excitedly, called our parents, and couldn’t stop smiling. Who even cares about being woken up early when you get to get off of the dang ship?!
We raced up to the 9th deck to watch the sunrise as we docked in Honolulu. Clearly, every one and their brother had this idea too because Lido (9th deck) was hopping. Everyone’s energy was off the charts as people FaceTimed, called, texted, Snap chatted, or communicated somehow with home. You could tell none of us had used our phones in a week, yikes. I think some people were about to start sending smoke signals they were so deprived of communication.
Lucky for us, it calmed down.
Before they would let us off the dang thing, each student had to show their passport to an officer before they would clear the ship. At 10:30 am we stepped foot on land for the first time in a week, it was magical.
The comical part of the whole thing was as we waited to get cleared, a few girls and I (all from the Midwest) were laughing at the pictures people were posting at home. One girl’s family sent her pictures of a huge snow storm, I was looking at people freezing their butts off in Europe for J term, and others were looking at the weather reports. But we were in 80 degree weather and on our way to go snorkeling, what a life. We may have it just a tad bit better, I hate to say.
Saul, the captain squished about thirty of us on the catamaran, with help from his trusty sidekick, Sushi. This little pup was awesome, he would bark when he saw sea turtles to make sure we saw them too. And when he wasn’t busy with that he was cuddled up on my feet, making Hawaii feel a little more like home with my pups.
From there, Saul took us about twenty minutes off the coast of Waikiki beach. The whole ride out there we were all ‘ohing’ and ‘ahing’ because the views were pretty dreamy. Major plus that we were able to be that close to the water we had been sailing on for the past week.
Saul brought us to this specific spot because it was a turtle ‘cleaning’ station. Which when he said this, it reminded me of the movie Shark Tale where they have the car wash, but its for whales. All the fish who work there are cleaning the whales like they’d wash a car. I imagined the same concept for the turtles from that movie. Just me? Probably.
I was in the second group to get in the water, so I had to wait an agonizing forty-five minutes to jump in. When I did, it totally shocked me, it was cooooold (but I’m cold 100% of the time, so this probably doesn’t count for much). Took me a while to get my mask and snorkel figured out (child-sized head problems, what can I say), but once I did, I was in awe. Not even 10 feet below us were schools of colorful fish all surrounding a family of five or so sea turtles. The turtles were unlike anything I’ve seen, they were straight out of Finding Nemo. Those puppies were HUGE.
I’ve seen turtles dozens of times before, a few times in the wild too. But there was something different about being close enough to reach my hand out and touch them in their natural habitat (don’t worry, I didn’t do that, I know its incredibly illegal). One even came to the surface about a foot and a half from me, it freaked me out because I was looking the other way. Quite the surprise.
The dean of students, Marnie, had told to all of us in our Hawaii pre-port, that she wanted us to have our ‘ocean moment’ more than one if we could. She described it as a moment where you take a second to truly soak it all in and appreciate where you are because for four months, the ocean is our home. Snorkeling here in Hawaii, I had one of those moments.
I was in my own little world watching those turtles do their thing. All I could see was the turquoise water below me, the turtles, and the fish that swam all around me. All I could hear was the movement of the water and my breath in the snorkel. It was in those moments that I understood God in a new way. His overwhelming presence, the depth of His love, and the detail in His creation left me in awe; this was my ocean moment.
But then I blinked and the hour was over.
After the snorkeling and catamaran, we had the opportunity to go to Waikiki beach for a few hours. Before claiming a spot on the beach, we meandered around downtown Waikiki for a while. Luckily, I found some fantastic Hawaiian coffee, which rivals the best coffee I’ve ever had in my life (Gilli’s in Florence). For anyone who knows me knows that coffee affects me an unnatural amount, so you better believe this stuff made me bounce off the walls… worth it though. We ended up finding some Asai bowls too, which were also worth mentioning
Waikiki beach for a few hours was such a treat. It was full of chaos, food, and good friends. There was no other way I’d want to end our day in Hawaii.
Once we made our way back to the boat, the first priority was food. You would have thought that none of us had seen food before. Everyone was tan (or sunburned), hungry, exhausted, but incredibly happy.
I’d say, that was a pretty good way to end our first port in Hawaii.
P.S. Fun fact, the day after all of this, one of the biggest GREAT WHITE FREAKING SHARKS EVER RECORDED was spotted right near where we were swimming. His name is Deep Blue and is the literal Jaws; about 50 years old and 2.5 TONS!!! What. Are. The. Odds.
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