19 April 2011
Posted by Jay

Anyone who knows Ella knows that she loves animals, especially marine animals.  With this love for marine animals it makes sense that we would take a whale watching tour while in Hawaii. Ella was very excited for this tour and couldn't wait to look for whales in the ocean. 

Before boarding

When we boarded our boat we had a very nice presentation from the boat naturalist including our guaranteed sighting of a humpback: a plastic model.  Yeah, a little corny, but that is what tours are.  Once we left port we decided to head to some of the higher decks to get a better view.  Even though it was a very sunny blue sky day it was really, really windy so we stayed off the top deck.  Not long after getting out into the ocean Jess saw the first blow of a whale surfacing, even before they announced it on the ship.  From then we basically followed 2 different sets of moms and calves.  Ella was really excited to find them for about 15 minutes, then she got bored.  Luckily the ship had many more activities for both kids and adults to do.

Thar she blows!

Nice shot Kiki!

Mom and calf

My hair was blowing too, can't you see it?

Ella was very busy for the rest of the cruise making leis, playing the ukelele, and learning some hula.  We had a lot of fun and saw a few whales.

Making a lei

Nana and Abby modeling

Learning some chords



Abby dancing, not necessarily the hula

Aloha!

Jay