Hawai'i-dolphins and whales

After our visit to the Pu'uhonua o Honaunau refuge, we went back to the harbor and boarded an excursion boat, the Body Glove, for a tour of the coastal area near Kona. We started in the same bay we just visited on land and were lucky to see a large group of spinner dolphins, and then out in the open sea, at least two humpback whales.
Our excursion boat for the afternoon. They also served us lunch. 20131218-143847 dsc 8015 L. T. Smooth, originally from New Zealand, and half -Samoan, is a well known slack-key guitar performer in Hawaii, and has performed all over the world, earning several Grammy nominations. He entertained us for the entire excursion on the Body Glove. 20131218-135252 dsc 7968
20131218-135316 dsc 7970 The Captain Cook memorial. 20131218-140751 dsc 7977-crop1 This is a shot of a plaque we saw later on Kaua'i, but serves the purpose here.
Spinner dolphins 20131218-141435 dsc 7994 They are called spinner dolphins because they like to jump and spin 20131218-142041 dsc 8006
20131218-141747 dsc 8000 First sign of a whale 20131218-145356 dsc 8069 20131218-145524 dsc 8101
20131218-145356 dsc 8070 20131218-145356 dsc 8072 20131218-150458 dsc 8161 20131218-150524 dsc 8174
20131218-145608 dsc 8131 20131218-151151 dsc 8189 20131218-153038 dsc 8201 Heading back to the ship
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There was no large pier in this harbor, so the ship sat offshore at anchor and we were ferried to land aboard these tenders. 20131218-154810 dsc 8214 This mix is from some YouTube videos featuring LT. There is much more there if you are interested in this very talented musician.