The one thing that D wanted to do most on our trip was to go whale watching. This was the first time we were in Hawaii during prime whale watching season, and there are supposedly a lot more whales than usual this year, so it was perfect timing. On Monday morning we dropped off n to be with the grandparents and took k along for the adventure (she was free).
We booked the tour through Ocean Sports and departed from A Bay. They had us take off our shoes, which surprised us. The reason was that they wanted to minimize the amount of sand tracked onto the boat. They took us on a short glass bottom boat ride to get to the whale watching boat, Sea Smoke. 
Once on board we were greeted with cups of POG.
In retrospect, I’m not sure I would’ve taken k along at her age (3). I think she was a little too young to really enjoy it. I was kind of surprised at how “open” the sides of the boat were…it seems like it would be really easy for kids to fall through. It was also kind of hard to manage her, mainly because I was feeling pretty seasick once they turned the motor off and we were just swaying (ever so gently) back and forth. (The crew members really took care of me, though, and gave me ice chips and ginger candy. Thankfully, I made it through, but I was really glad to be on dry land again. I had k wear SeaBands to help prevent seasickness, but maybe I should have bought some for myself too!)
But, as promised, we did see quite a few whales, and they were a lot closer than I thought they would be. Some even swam directly under our boat! They truly are amazing creatures. It wasn’t easy taking picture, but here are my best two shots:
Mom and calf.
We were also able to see a lot of whales from the shoreline throughout our week as well.