Last week I met the dolphins face to face. It was at O'Honaunau and Ho'okena on the Kona side of the Big Island. I faced my deepest fear and swam out into the ocean so far that the palm trees looked like little toothpicks. Way out in the middle of the most delicious shade of turquoise, I was met with the sweetest reward. A pod of 40 Hawaiian Spinner dolphins.

I swam with them for three days... for several hours at a time. On the last day, there was a group of tourists (who didn't know about dolphin etiquette) splashing and chasing after them, which sent them all out even further into the ocean. It was a lot further than I wanted to go, so I stayed put and after about 10 minutes, scary shark thoughts slowly began to creep into my mind. Instead of giving in to fear, I put my face under the water and said "aloha..." Thirty seconds later, two large dolphins came to greet me. We swam together for a while until I needed to rest.