Sea Turtles Know They're Cool

I wanted to do some swimming so I went down to the beach, thinking i would do a few laps back and forth parallel to the shore. After 5 years of ocean swimming in Los Angeles, I was really looking forward to the bath tub conditions in Hawaii we've heard so much about. My first reaction? BRRRRRRRRR! It was cold! OK, the water was probably 10-15 degrees warmer than Zuma, but I was expecting a "zero-shock" entry. When the water splashed up against your tummy, it woke you up a bit. After a minute or two, it was fine.

It was like swimming in an aquarium. The water was crystal clear, and all those dish that you see in your local aquarium store were swimming right underneath me. Basically, the entire cast of Finding Nemo was there (minus the shark). 

I went out a little farther and saw a couple of sea turtles. They must have been three feet long. One of them swam up to the surface, poked his head up right in front of me and kept on swimming. I hung out with him a bit and he couldn't care less. He was just chilling out in the water. There are strict laws about not touching the sea turtles, but dude... he was RIGHT THERE. So I reached out and gently patted his shell. I want to stress that I didn't have to try to catch up to him or anything; he was just right there. Frankly, if I didn't reach out to pet him I think he would have come over and touched me so don't get all PETA on me. It was just very very cool.

Unfortunately, I completely blew off my actual swim workout. Why would I want to "exercise" when I could just hang with sea turtles?