Been swimming with Hawaiian Sea Turtles. The big island is rife with them. Old grumpy looking faces reminiscent of bad poetry and travel delays. Water wrinkled and camouflaged to look like coral and the interplay of light on the water, the volcanic sand on the beaches. The armored shell does not allow them great mobility either on land or at sea. Their beach crawling is invalid and painful while underwater, big waves come and roll them over so they struggle to right themselves with a slow and weary waggling of the flippers that is only slightly more efficient than my abysmal Pinball ability. Fortification or speed? That was the question posed in the distant days of evolutionary development. The tortoise and turtle collective opted on the shell, the body armor, the home body castle. So now they move like old people struggling down the aisles of a baffling and faintly ominous supermarket.
At the Kona Village Resort there is a reef covered with algae just a few feet out from the beach. It's like a big green salad bar and dozens of them hover over it munching as the tide rolls them slowly from side to side.
All around the island are signs issuing warnings to give them room and let them be. There are fines for touching them. You are supposed to stay twenty feet away but there are a lot of them, it's tough. If they ever enforced the ruling seriously, the turtles would be able to herd us all onto the sharp outcroppings of volcanic rock where our feet would blister and our faces twist into Tiki grimaces.
Other sun bleached signs relating to the ocean that we witnessed: 'Do Not Throw rocks at the Manta Rays', 'Tsunami Evacuation Route this way', 'Do not harass the Dolphins' and 'WARNING: Kraken Sacrificial Area'.
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