From: YL Sargent [mailto:alaskabound7@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, December 11, 2009 10:14 PM
To: info@alohakauaitours.com
Subject: Comment on recent tour

We were just in Hawaii in November 2009 and took a snorkeling tour with your company as part of a shore excursion in connection with an inter-island cruise (Pride of America.)  Our tour was November 12th.  The reason I'm writing you is to give some special recognition to one of your guides.  After seeing the pictures on your website, I see her name is Kailee Mu.  (Am attaching a picture for your verification of that.)

We've been on quite a few cruises over the past few years, and quite a few excursions...so have had a lot of guides, and for the most part they've been really good.  A couple stand out as special, like the guides in Grand Cayman who brought the sting ray close enough to the boat that I could touch it from there.  I don't swim, a real bummer, as I'm like anyone else, I want to see all the underwater life too...

And that is where Kailee came in.  She had the big surfboard with the attachments so people could just hang on and she'd lead them to where the fish is.  I know she had to get the board out past the swells to begin with...and in retrospect, if I'd had a lifejacket on as well as the wetsuit, I probably would have been able to psych myself up enough to do it, but without one, I just didn't trust the wetsuit.  Poor Kailee, she kept saying, "You'll be okay, I promise, I'll be right here," etc., but I just couldn't do it.  Finally she acquiesced and took several people, including my husband, out with her, while I sat on the beach choking back tears in disgust at myself...I had bought an underwater camera shortly before the trip with the express intent of getting some good pictures, I'm a real photography freak.

Well, after a little while, my husband came back in to tell me that Kailee was going to take me out when the others were done...and she did, telling me to balance myself across the board and she'd take to where some fish were.  At this point, she had the board on the beach side of the swells.  It didn't take long before she said there were some fish right below us, for me to get my head in the water...that took psyching up too, sorry, I'm a real chicken at this, but I could see the fish so started taking pictures.  Then someone else (the other guide, I think) said, hey, here's a sea turtle over here!  She took me over to see it, I snapped away again...and when we got back to shore, she said, so did you get some good pictures?  I checked my camera, and I hadn't pressed down hard enough...I have two Olympus cameras, both are pretty new, and I didn't have to press down that hard with the other one.  So I didn't have any pictures at all...

When Kailee heard that, she said, "I'll take your camera and go back out and take some pictures for you."  And she did, and came back in a few minutes later and said, "I'm sorry, I couldn't find the turtle again..."

I can't begin to tell you how much her kindness meant to me.  She went way above and beyond her job to do this for me.  She got 18 really nice pictures.  Every time we go on a trip, I do a whole photo story for quite a few people...I email segments daily...it lets other people "take the trip," too.  Well, thanks to Kailee, a lot of people were able to see some of the wonderful underwater life.  I just sent that segment out today, and I've already had many comments on it.

So please tell her thank you again, and if there's some perk you give people for doing an extraordinary job, please give it to her, she deserves it.  We're already looking into going back to Kauai, since of all the islands, it's the one we saw the least of, and when we do, we'll for sure be back for another try at her big surfboard !!

Yvonne (and Don) Sargent

Sacramento

California