WHALE WATCHING

Our whale watch morning started out inauspiciously when we got on the wrong bus and ended up halfway down town before I realized. We were supposed to get on the 42 bus, but weve been going a lot of places on the 2, and when the 2 came by, we just hopper on.  Let's face it, I'm just not a morning person.
After our not so spectacular start we did actually get to the whale watch by 7:45. It was kind of interesting.  This is a whale count they do annually on the last Saturday of the month in January, February and March.   They recruit about 12-15 people for each site, and they have something like 60 sites around the islands.  We were each given a piece of paper telling us how to record.  there was a column for adults, calves, and several columns for behaviors, like breaching, fin slapping, fluke slapping and something else I dont remember.  Then we had to record the weather conditions.  it was very hazy.  hawaii has a vog problem.  Vog is like smog, except the particulate matter is from the volcano on the big island.  When the trade winds are blowing, it's not bad, but when they're not, it looks like Los Angeles.   We all sat in a big group all looking out to sea.

It's amazing how much is going on here. There are surfers, snorkelers, a lot of paddlers, both kayaks, stand up paddle boarders, and sculls, and there actually seems to have been some sort of scull race. There are some tourist boats that claim to be submarines that they really don't totally go below the surface. They look like submarines but they never entirely submerge.  However, when you are in the boat the windows (not portholes) are below the surface.  We  also saw big cruise ships, the four story kind, sail boats, catamarans, and parasail. In the air there are jetliners, small planes, helicopters.
 By 10 AM they had spotted one whale, which no matter how hard we looked, neither John nor I saw. Also by 10 AM I was really nauseated so I had to go walk away from the place to find some shade. I think maybe four hours sitting on sharp lava rocks may be too much for my old bones.
By 11 o'clock I was so sick we actually had to leave even though we were supposed to be there til noon.  I was convinced I had sunstroke.
So we came home and I have slept all day from noon to 9 o'clock. I feel horrible. John went and got me some electrolyte stuff because I was losing so much fluid.
This also meant that I couldn't go to the concert we had tickets for tonight, El Mundo, which really annoys me. I think this is why I hate to buy tickets for things ahead of time. Either something better comes up and I hate that I've been pinned down to what I bought the tickets for, or I end up not being able to go.
Tomorrow is the Pro Bowl, and they have a huge block party all the way down the Waikiki part of Kalakua avenue, with lots of food vendors and a craft fair and sometimes chances to see the football players or the cheerleaders. John did go down to that, so it wasn't an entire loss.