Dear Lorien,

On the way to work this morning (at yet another Hawaiian congregational church), we stopped by this spot on the southwestern side of the island. There is no beach here, as the shore drops down to rocks and little hidden coves, some of which form beautiful green pools. Lloyd said that not very many people know about these spots and, even if they did they wouldn’t deign to swim there, as they aren’t nice sandy beaches.

But all the better to sit and meditate in blessed solitude, without hordes of tourists or really, even locals! ;-)

The only “locals” to be found here are green sea turtles, who venture close to this rocky point from their offshore reef homes, to find and feast on seaweed and seagrasses. This is an excellent place to go snorkeling and to observe these magnificent animals, whose movements in liquid space are so elegant, smooth, unencumbered.

For a creature who has to carry her house with her on her back, it’s extraordinary to see how gracefully she moves in water.

Lloyd told me a story: many years ago, when he had just moved to Maui, he became fascinated with green sea turtles, as he began seeing them in various places where he went snorkeling and diving. He began keeping notes, logs and journals, sharing his observations on his weblog. He realized that, if he had to do college all over again, he most likely would have studied marine biology and become a field scientist, studying these reptiles.

Back then, he says, he felt an urgency to observe and study green sea turtles in various Maui locations, as he sensed something changing: from his talks with old-timers on the island, he knew that the coral reef ecosystems where turtles lived were dying out and shrinking—the ocean was becoming more acidic, warmer. The turtles themselves were under assault from all sorts of man-made toxins. You can read about some of that in the link above, which leads to weblog posts Lloyd wrote about green sea turtles.

His story takes a sudden, unexpected twist: around the time of his fascination with marine life on Maui, he became a dad. Of sorts. He told me about the Hawaiian way of adoption, called hanai. But that’s a story for another day.

your friend,
Flat Stanley