Wild Dolphin Encounter

It is absolutely amazing being out on the water every day. It changes from week to week, day to day, and even hour to hour. The trade winds are usually blowing hard, funneling between the two volcanoes, but there are always some spots that provide great snorkeling. I love finding little sea creatures like nudibranchs and juvenile moray eels like the little whitemouth in the picture below. But every once in a while something big will swim through and steal the show.
I swam with dolphins a few times off the coast of california but I hadn't gotten the chance here in Maui yet. We have a few different species, spinner dolphins, bottlenose, spotted, false killer whales, etc., but we see them pretty infrequently on my trips. But I still hoped...
Yesterday we got lucky. Really lucky. As we pulled up to our second snorkel site we got word that there were spinner dolphins in the area. I ran to get the microphone and looked over the water to find them. I was surprised to see them very close to shore, swimming under some kayakers and another boat. We slowly drove into the area and got some close looks while I gave an in depth dolphin talk to all of our guest. One even soared out of the water spinning a full 6 or 7 rotations.
We then proceeded back to our snorkel spot and were excited to see the dolphins headed our way. I was going to kayak lifeguard so I grabbed my underwater canon and launched my kayak fast. I peered underwater which was unusually only 40 foot viz and couldn't see them. Then I caught a glimpse of some big silver heading my way but nope, it turned out to be a school of chubs coming to check me out. Then I turned back towards where I thought the dolphins should be and dove down. I immediately saw them, drifting ethereally through the water around 40 feet down, gliding over the sandy bottom. They are daytime resters, able to shut off half their brain at a time to rest but still function. Although if you look closely at the picture above you can see that one has a leaf on its right pectoral fin. They often play keep away and 'pass the leaf' when excited. It reminded me of a kid in kindergarten who reluctantly participated in nap time cradling his ball, dreaming about recess after.