Paradise Cove Turtles

It seems life has gotten a little in the way of keeping up with this blog.  After returning to work full time and trying to keep the rest of my life on track, this blog seemed to fall to the wayside.  Have no fear, one of my New Year's resolutions is to pick it back up and keep it active.  With a recent visit from my sister, I will have plenty of material to write about as she has kept us VERY busy.

This next post is actually from quite a while ago.  We went to Paradise Cove with my parents when they came to visit back in July, but Kathryn and I went again during her winter vacation with us.  Paradise Cove is a small, man-made, protected cove with a surprising amount of marine life.  Making a natural safety barrier from predators, sea turtles have found this to be a desirable location at high tide.

On our first visit, we made the mistake of arriving as the tide was just starting to come in.  We were about to give up when all of a sudden a turtle surfed a wave into the cove.  He was a hit with everyone there (many families with little kids) and had no fear of visitors.  I think these turtles have been hand-fed a few snacks over time and are checking out if anyone has something for them.  The turtle hung around quite a bit and all around the people.  Despite many encounters with turtles in the wild while scuba diving, this was a very cool experience.

Unfortunately while Kathryn was here, we saw no turtles.  We got there at the perfect time (early before crowds, at high tide), but to no avail.  I have since been told that the turtles have recently been hanging out at the mouth of the cove on the ocean side, but we didn't venture that far.

Overall, a neat spot to check out with a chance to see turtles.  Would be a great spot for kids to play.  Unfortunately, this site only has about 10 public parking spots.  The same beach is used by the Paradise Cove Luau (post to come) and all of the surrounding parking spots are saved for that.