Our Hawaiian Adventure: Kauai (Day 3)

Friday morning started early, too. Third day in a row being up by 5:00, but thankfully, it still doesn't feel quite that early to us. We left our hotel at about 5:15 and headed to the other side of the island. Craig wasn't kidding when he told me you can't really get anywhere quickly and there isn't such thing as a direct path. Sort of a combination of WV and CT roads except here there are beautiful cliffs/mountains and pretty ocean to look at most of the way. We got to Waimea at about 6:20, got checked in for our adventure, given instructions and then headed over to the little harbor we were going to launch from. If Craig had told me we were going to be taking a 5 hour tour of the Na Poli coast in a raft the Coast Guard uses, I don't know that I would have signed up. He kept telling me we were going on a boat tour- I don't think of no-seat vessels that you have to slip your feet under floor ropes and hold on to side ropes as a “boat.” Yes, I was uncomfortable with the whole thing until we got out on the water. Because of the kind of 'boat' we were on and how tightly you had to hold on all the time, we didn't get as many pictures as we had hoped. We didn't really want to lose our camera in the ocean. Anyway, the early morning tours have a couple bonuses: smoother water (although at the speeds we were going, I wouldn't call our ride smooth at all) and more sea critter spotting. Oh, and the obvious- watching the sun come up over the gorgeous cliffs while out on the water.

Our tour took us to see all 17 miles of the coast. I am just going to include a bunch of pictures and maybe a link to a wikipedia article about the coast rather than trying to explain all of it. It was gorgeous, the water was stunning and clear and we got to see a variety of sea animals. We got some pretty impressive whale shows, saw a hammerhead shark – Craig spotted it first – and saw some beautiful bottle nose dolphins. They were very playful and several came right up to the boat. No, I did not touch them. They're wild animals. (Gross.)

We were surprisingly worn out by the time we got back to our car at noon. We returned our water proof bag to the company and then headed to Da Emu Hut to get lunch. It is run by the bishop of one of the wards Craig served in and his family. The wife recognized Craig and came over to talk to us for a while. I ordered the kalua pig plate which also came with two huge scoops of rice, a salmon pico and a macaroni salad. I don't care for macaroni salad but theirs was good. No one warned me that the plate would be half meat and said meat would be 4 inches high. It was seriously enough food for two whole meals for Craig, Sophie and I. It was very good and I enjoyed it but I ate way too much- but I didn't even finish half of it. (Oh, tummy ache!!)

We drove back to our side of the island after lunch. I fell asleep almost right away and Craig had to pull over at a little shopping center to sleep, too. We got back to our hotel, rested for a while longer and then headed out to the beach nearest us. Having been to California beaches that always seem to be packed and beaches in New England where there is basically no room to even sit on the sand, I wasn't expecting an empty beach. But that is pretty much what we got. We could see some people down from us and people in the water, but we had some chairs pulled up under a large leaf tree and it was quiet! The warm breeze, shade and beautiful ocean made for a very relaxing afternoon.

After playing in the water for a bit, we went back, showered and ventured out to find dinner. After wandering around a little shopping area (mostly full of stereotypical tourist things- tacky Hawaiian shirts, “Someone who loves me went to Hawaii and got me this shirt,” magnets, key chains etc.) we found a fish house that looked good and had reasonable prices. We shared a single meal: fresh mahi mahi, a big green salad complete with fresh pineapple, steamed rice (every meal) and steamed vegetables.

We headed back to the hotel after that. We were still very tired. I've had a couple thoughts since getting here. Hawaiian is a beautiful language and I've never met so many genuinely happy, friendly people before and we've lived in the South. It just adds to the beauty!