Yesterday, the ocean was flat as a pancake, so I called pau hana at 2 and Tina and I went down to 2-Step. As soon as we got there, we could see a big pod of dolphins in close to the reef edge. Better still, we had our best freediving gear with us -- full wetsuits with weights and longblade fins. That meant that we could go out, drop down to any depth with a minimum of movement, and just hang out. Usually, the way to see dolphins is stay in one place and move as little as possible. Once they've seen you six or seven times and you just move vertically, they realize you're not going to chase them and start to use you as a turning point in their cruising (and so they swim by you every five or ten minutes).
Well, yesterday, the dolphins weren't into that. For some reason, they were approaching all sorts of snorkelers much, much closer than they normally do. I actually swam out to where I normally see them and after fifteen minutes I swam back in to where the other people were because the dolphins were being so amazingly not-just-tolerant but downright interactive. The dolphins were jumping and spinning five feet away from people who were splashing around and screaming and shouting. It was very unusual.
After awhile, Tina and I realized that the dolphins were playing with mango leaves in the water -- dragging them along with their pectoral, dorsal, and caudal fins. We spotted a couple leaves floating and snagged them ourselves, hooking them with our fingers and swimming along with them. Well, holy cow... the dolphins were totally into it. The game was: you'd swim down, drop the mango leaf between 20' and 40' down and surface for a breath of air. Then, as you swam down to get the mango leaf again, the dolphins would suddenly appear and steal the leaf away.
Once I looked down and Tina was surfacing from about 20'. A bunch of dolphins swam up and she stopped her ascent, just hanging out. They circled her once and then one of them -- VOOM! -- straight to the surface and did a triple spin. Unbelievable.
There was a noticeable thermocline in the water and there were a bunch of rainbow runners and a big school of Crocodile Needlefish. Two nights before the first full moon of Spring? I dunno' what it was, but it was incredible. Two hours of swimming with dolphins.