February . . .

Ahhh... So this month flew by fast. I went home to be with my family and see my grandfather before he past away. While I was home James' grandfather past away, and the day that I was heading back to Hawaii, James was headed to Toledo for his grandfather's funeral. So February started off to be a rough month. So we spent two weeks apart with traveling home to be with our families.

James and I celebrated our one year anniversary! 

When we came to Hawaii in 2009 to get married, James talked about going to swim with the sharks. So we got up bright and early on the 24th, drove to the other side of the island. On our way out to the shark cage, which was about 3 to 4 miles offshore, we saw dozens of whale pods. It was amazing to look out across the water and see all the whales come to the surface and spout water.

James and I were the first ones to get into the cage, it was amazing. There was probably close to 20 sharks swimming around the cage. The sharks are attracted to the sound of the boats engine, because they associate the sound with the crab boats. When the crab boats go to pull up their pots, the sharks come up to eat the left over bait, so they just assume that that's what these boats are going to do.

It was such an amazing experience and a bit serial. They are such calm and gentle creatures. The only scary part was looking down and seeing little jellyfish swimming around us. And before James could pull me out of the way from them I got stung on the leg. As soon as our 10 minutes were up and we got out of the cage and back into the boat, two hump back whales past in front of the boat about 20 feet away.

We were lucky because once the whales came most of the sharks dispersed. On our way back into the marina, a pod of Spinner dolphins swam along side the boat. It was such an amazing way to spend our one year anniversary.

The next day we went para-sailing, which I was more anxious about than going swimming with the sharks. It was incredible to be able to be so high up in the air and look down on everything. 

The month of February started out to pretty tough for James and I, but it ended with the celebration of our one year anniversary.