Mandy's Visit - Whale Watching & SUP

I won't lie, Thursday morning was rough for me... being sick from the luau, I maybe got 4hrs of sleep total. But, we paid for a whale watching cruise and we were going no matter what! So up at 6am and out the door by 6:45am it was. We arrived at the perfect time to check-in and board the ship. We ran into the Captain first thing (I'm sad we didn't get a photo with him) he was a very genuine man and we found out he was a former Coastie! We sat down in the dining room, were given our safety brief, information on the whales, then we disembarked. Once we left the harbor breakfast was served, it was a nice continental breakfast- fresh fruit, yogurt, muffins, crescents, coffee, juice, and tea.

During breakfast we had our first whale sighting notification, we ran outside in time to see the "blow." We spent the entire rest of the cruise on the decks scanning the horizon for whales. We only ended up seeing three, but it was a beautiful morning out on the ocean!

Our cruise ended at 10:30am, since we were already in Waikiki we decided to spend some time hanging out at Ft. DeRussy Beach. Mandy really wanted to learn how to SUP so we rented a board, I gave her a few pointers, and off she went! While I was taking a turn on the board I spotted a sea turtle, so I furiously paddled back to the beach, had Mandy jump on the front of the board and paddled back out praying he was still cruising around... lucky us, he was! We followed him for about 15min and he even cruised right under our board and popped up for a perfect photo!

We called the day early since I really needed some sleep... after grabbing some shave ice we headed back to the house. I showered and climbed into bed for a 2hr nap, while Mandy soaked up the last few hours of sun at the beach near our house.