The NaPali Coast

Pictures simply don't do it justice. Mine, even more so. Though my ride was short, only 40 minutes, it was amazing. I was speechless afterwards. I just couldn't find words to describe it. The cliffs are sheer, vertical and covered in vegetation and I've never seen so many waterfalls. The flight covered the verdent green of the north shore and the NaPali coast as well as the bone dry Waimea canyon that we'd driven last Sunday on our first day of the trip. What's amazing is that you go from the wettest place on earth, Mount Wailealeale, to one of the driest places in a distance of like 8 miles.

I was a a bit nervous during the flight becuase the little helicopter was so easily tossed around. It didn't help that the canopy of the thing looked like a wimpy eggshell with a honkin' propeller on it. And they warn you to wear dark colored clothes to reduce glare on the canopy for better picture taking. I have only white shirts and so my reflection is ruining almost every picture I took.

All in all it was worth ever penny and provided images I'll keep forever.

Fun in the sun, and a rescue...of sorts.

Interesting day today.

Almost witnessed someone drown. I was snorkeling at Hideaways beach again this morning. When I got there there was a lady there and someone snorkeling just a bit off shore. I asked how long she’d be there since I preferred to have someone else around for safety. She said they just got there and they’d be staying for about an hour.

Perfect.

So, I put my gear on and I waded out. I was out for only a minute or two and my mask fogged a little so I lifted my head to pull it away and rub the inside. I noticed the lady waving in my direction. I didn’t know if she was waving at me or at her husband that was a distance beyond me. I thought it was a bit out of place for her to wave at me, a total stranger, but every time I looked up she waved at me again. I thought, this cant be coincedence and it was enough to make me paddle in and see what was up. Essentially she wanted to know if I thought her husband was in trouble. I look out and he’s like 250 yards out in the ocean. I said I know the reef goes out that far and he looks like he’s just lollygagging but I couldn’t tell if he was in trouble. I told her he probably floated out there unknowingly. But he was really far out so I hung out for a few minutes to try to get his attention and see if he’d respond.

Now we're both waving.

He kept getting further and further away and would rise and fall with each wave making him appear and disappear over and over again. Eventually we we saw that his snorkeling turned into “bobbing”. He didn’t have his mask or snorkel anymore and these mondo waves were pounding over him. At that point his wife was in a panic and I was a bit worried too. She went to call for help and I weighed the options before me. I’m not a great swimmer so I was worried about swimming out with that red thingy and then getting stuck out there too. There were some surfers coming in and I decided to see if one of them could swim out and see if the guy was OK.

It was a kid, probably around 17 and he agreed to go. I gave him my fins and he swam out to the guy. Turns out that the guy was following a couple of sea turtles and before he knew it he was way in the #%&@ out there. He said his fins broke and he couldn’t keep them on to swim in. Truth is I think the guy would have lasted another 10 minutes out there, tops. I can’t even imagine if another scenario had played out. Once the guy was out of the water the rescue guys showed up since his wife had scampered up the cliff steps to call 911. They spoke to him for a minute and chastised him for another minute then left. I’m just glad I was able to find someone who was capable of helping. I think the guy was in shock. He really didn’t converse too much when he got on the beach and he was breathing like he’d just sprinted a mile. It was completely plausible that he would have drown and that would have really wigged me out big time.

It was completely crazy.!

I did manage to snorkel a bit after this whole ordeal and saw a sea turtle. Don’t know why those seem to be the pinnacle creature to see in the ocean, but I floated over it for about 5 minutes just soaking it in.

Anneka had her surf lesson today. Her instructor said she was a natural with amazing abilities for a first timer. I think she made it look easy. The waves were small, which is perfect to learn on, but she’d just get going and hop right up. Her knees are so bruised right now though from hitting the shallow bottom at the end of each ride. I think she really enjoyed it though.

The sun was out in full force today. But it still took till early evening for there to be no clouds covering up the cliffs of the NaPali coast. So we finally saw them in their entirety today. I scheduled my helicopter ride for tomorrow morning. I’m excited and nervous at the same time. I just hope the weather holds and that it is as amazing in real life as it appears in all the pictures and postcards I’ve seen.

More later,

Sand Castles

Spent the day at Lydgate beach and Kalapaki beach building sand castles. Sun was out on this part of the island. I forgot to put suncsreen on and roasted my back. How is it I can conscientously put it on Sophie but not myself?

Duh...

Options

Today was all about options.

Options are good, especially when snorkeling.
I went out this morning at an amazing little beach called Hideaways. I already sort of hyperventilate when I’m out in the ocean. I don’t think they make tubes big enough for me to breathe through without feeling like I’m being starved of oxygen. Being out there alone only made it worse. So imagine my relief when a couple of other guys showed up. See, if a shark showed up and I was the only option, I’d be toast, figuratively speaking. I’d be meat to the shark. But with the other guys there the shark would have options.

There was a skinny, shorter little guy from California. I don’t think the shark would find him very appetizing. Or at least not very filling, anyways. But, his buddy was a taller, plumper guy from Germany. Sort of a Brӓt snorkeler. A shark could feast on that guy for a week. It’s amazing how much more relaxed I became when those guys were there.
Like other days and other places I saw an amazing array of fish. I rounded a large bit of coral and encountered about a 5 foot long eel.

I peed a little with that.

A little while later I’d taken a break for a minute and was on the shore when a really big sea turtle mozied by just 15 feet off the beach. Sadly I’d set my gear elsewhere on the beach and walked down a bit so I ran back to get it and by the time I got back it was long gone. Perhaps I’ll see another one on another day. What amazes me is that you see a fish that you think is so crazy looking and yet there’s always another crazier looking one after that.

Oh, and I bought a wetsuit this morning too.

Man do I look goofy in a wetsuit.

Wetsuits accentuate all your bodily negatives. It showed that I have no muscles in my legs whatsoever and made my gut stick out so I looked like a lollipop balancing on it's stick. But it was warm.

Without it I could only last about 20 to 30 minutes in the water before getting too cold to stay in. With it I was out for almost 2 hours in one stint at Hideaways.

Anyways, today was a great day. I little more sun and a little less rain, mainly in the afternoon. Perhaps tomorrow will hold even better weather. The coral and the fish look so much more colorful in the sun.

Aloha till tomorrow.

Kauai trip

So, at the start of the second full day here in Kauai I’ve learned a couple of things;

You don’t get anywhere fast

There are copious amounts of chickens (and they're noisy)

I hyperventilate when I snorkel

Beach sand gets in all your business no matter how hard you try to avoid it

They don’t have dollar drinks at McDonalds

I nearly crashed the car twice from not watching the road and letting my eyes wander too much.

So, when we got here we were picked up by a hired car and driven, in the dark, for about 40 minutes, to the townhouse we’re staying at. It rained off and on all the way here. But when we actually got to the town house the heavens just opened up on us and it really poured.

The owners of the town house left us with use of their vehicle, which is such a blessing, but when I went down to the garage to start it the battery was dead. So, I ventured out to try to find someone with jumper cable who could help me start it. I went door to door for a couple of minutes, in the pouring rain, but got nothing. So, I went to one last door.

Weird mistake.

Notice I didn’t say “big mistake”, because it wasn’t really a mistake, it was just weird. A guy comes to the door and I let him know my situation. With a tongue slowed by molasses or methamphetamine, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out his keys and says, “just take my car man.” I was clearly unprepared for that as an outcome so I stood there for a couple of seconds sort of dumbstruck. He must have picked up on that so he countered his own offer by saying, “I’ll just drive you”. I wasn’t prepared for that invitation either.

So, he went in and made some tea and came back out and we hopped into his newer Nissan Altima. Now, the distance to the store is actually quite short – perhaps ½ a mile tops. I introduced myself and he returned the greeting. His name was Joe. What happened next will rank as the weirdest conversation I have ever had with another human being. I commented that the thunder clap we’d just heard earlier that night was the loudest I’d ever heard in my life. That must have been code for him to unleash the weird hounds. In short we talked, well, he talked, I nodded up and down with my mouth wide open. But we talked about how the US government can harness electricity from thunder and that we’re all made of clay and that left-over male and female reproductive material could support life like it does for alien populations since our genealogy is alien.

This was the ½ mile drive TO the store. The return trip was about how we are full of trace minerals including lithium and that the government wants us to eat more lithium but that lithium can be found in the shape of subterranean Christmas trees and that lightening makes a different sound whether it is hitting something soft or hard.

When we got back he asked me if I wanted some bananas and I said sure. I waited by the door and he gave me 4 bananas, a red onion and a yam. Seriously. With yam in hand he said ,”Do you like hot chocolate?” I said sure and he disappeared for a minute and came back with about 20 packages of Swiss Miss hot chocolate.

I thanked him profusely for his kindness to a complete stranger to which he said he was just looking for someone to help to cover up wrongs he did in new Jersey.

May not sound strange on the surface, but I haven’t told you the half of what we talked about in the car on the way to and from the store. It was like a Russian roulette of subject matter ranging from what to do with excess seminal fluid to our alien genealogy.

It was THE weirdest experience of my life!

Next morning a backed the car out of the garage and after trying for about half an hour was able to flag someone down who had jumper cables. It was an effusively nice older Hawai’ian lady that hooked up her cables to my car and helped me get it going. Took like 20 minutes for it to start but it ran great thereafter.

Plan was to not risk anything and with so few people here having jumper cables, to drive down to the walmart in Lihue and get a new battery. I almost crashed twice on the way there just from not paying attention to the road. Didn’t realize Walmart is so far away. I mean the island is only like 20 miles across it seems but with a mix of 25 to 35 mile per hour zones it takes a long time to get anywhere. Essentially I drove what seemed like forever to get to the walmart, got some goods then drove forever back to the house. Once back we packed up the car and took off again – back towards the walmart. It’s been on again off again rain here and we understand the south part of the island to be less rainy so we opted to go to Poipu bay to swim then drive the distance to Waimea canyon.

Got to Poipu and found a nice little spot to lay. I dipped my feet in the water and thought, “there’s no way I’m gettin’ in that!” But my sense of adventure (right) took over and I got in with mask and snorkel. It was so cold I was hyperventilating trying to breath through that little tube. Plus, I’ve got a massive cold and had a runny nose all day long. I kept having to clear my mask of water by blowing out through my nose. But all that did was remove the water and replace it with snot.

Don’t know what is worse – drowning in seawater or drowning your own snot.

Somehow I managed to stay out there for about a half hour before I got too cold. There were some amazing fish to see. Sophie got to boogie board with Anneka. All in all it was a blast. We were only there about an hour and half and then decided to drive the distance to Waimea canyon.

We bought some Hawai'ian shave ice when we left the beach. Totally yummy, just not made for eating in a car. I could eat shaved ice for breakfast, lunch and dinner. They're so good. Crazy thing is it's just ice and flavoring. Maybe there's magic in how they make it. Whatever it is, real Hawai'ian shave ice is delish!

So, Waimea canyon is like the grand canyon of the Hawai'ian islands. The drive was a winding cobra wonderland and when we got to the top the views were amazing and well worth the drive. We went all the way to the top to an overlook of the NaPali coast some 4000 feet below us. It was foggy, cold and windy at the top. But the views were stunning. Took us two hours plus, to drive home.

At the Waimea canyon lookout

















































































































All things considered it was an amazing start to the trip. This cold I’m fighting is the worst I think I’ve ever had, but I keep pounding the meds and it seems to help just enough to help me get through each day.

Today were’ going to dink around in Hanalei just a couple of miles down the road. It’s a mix of sun and clouds but the air temperatures are ideal.


More later

Getting Ready

Aloha here we come!