turtles

We swam with some sea turtles today. Awesome. Truly, awe-inspiringly awesome. Magnificent creatures. And so chill. It makes sense how Hawaiians love them so much because they have absolutely the same vibe. “Can you just back off a bit? I'm gonna come up here and breathe. Mahalo.”

The reefs have been honestly a little depressing, though. There are so many dead coral skeletons without any new growth replacing them. Not sure if that’s warming or just too much sun screen rained down on them. I suspect the latter because my understanding of the former is less sunlight due to rising sea levels and the dead spots do not seem directly correlatable to depth. Either is sad, though, and a poor reflection on us humans. Almost enough to make me feel guilty about being there, but definitely not enough to make me wish I hadn't come. I do hope for more wind- or renewable-electricity-powered tours in the future, though, and I'm glad I didn't use any sunscreen. From what I understand, there's no such thing as reef-safe sunscreen. It passes the sniff test, too: something designed to block the sun should probably not be showered down on animals who live off the sun's energy. I'm sure the microbead plastics are worse, but sunblock blocks the sun.