Kauai, Hawaii December 2004/January 2005

Monday Jan 3: Let me start by introducing the Koloa Landing Cottages. As I said earlier, we were very happy with the accommodations. We had a two bedroom, two bathroom cottage with a nice living room and fully equipped kitchen and a nice deck. Again, there were beach chairs, boogie boards and other equipment for our use; they also offered us huge (to us) avocados - what a treat! But the gardens surrounding the cottages were extremely lush and added greatly to the charm. (See pictures left and below) That first morning was bright and sunny but we were a bit slow to move. We were in prime snorkeling territory now so John went off (on foot) to try it out. About the time the rest of us were greased up and ready to face the sun, it poured again! This was beginning to get old. But it was windy enough that the rain moved on fairly quickly.

              

After he got dried off and changed, John went to the Farmer's Market in Koloa and the rest of us optimistically walked down to Kiahuna Beach in front of the Sheraton Resort (right). It rained a bit on and off but not a lot and the sun came out in between so we just moved under trees or ponchos for the rainy periods! John came to find us when he got back from Koloa and we all drove over to Poipu Beach for a while. He tried a little snorkeling and Gail swam but the rest of us just read and absorbed the sun! By the way, the snorkeling so far (except for the short time at Ke'e beach last week) was very disappointing. The storms churned up so much mud and debris that the water was too cloudy to see much of anything. About 4:30 we went back to the cottage and had homemade guacamole (thank you, John!) and chips, then went to an early supper (most of us hadn't had a real lunch) at Mi Casita in Koloa. That was by far the best value we encountered on the island - lots of great Mexican food, nice people, good service and extremely inexpensive. (All five of us ate well, including beer for those who wanted it, for about $62!)

Tuesday Jan 4: Finally a perfect vacation weather day! YAY! Gail took advantage of it and went off early to hike a 9 mile loop in Waimea Canyon. She is more adventurous than some of us! We made reservations for a snorkel, whale, dolphin boat trip tomorrow and then went off seeking a snorkel place. First we timed the drive to Port Allen so we would know how early we had to get up to be there at 6 AM. (early...) Then, just half a mile or so down the road, we found Glass Beach. A very interesting place. At first glance, it appears to be "just another beach" (left). But if you look closely, you see that it is all small pieces of sea glass (right). Below a closer view of the rocks and waves at the end of the beach and Katie and Dave venturing out to the edge!

     

After scavenging there for a while, we drove on to Salt Pond Beach. On one side it was still too murky for snorkeling; on the other side John said it was very clear but there was nothing to see! However, a monk seal (below left) had decided to come ashore for a rest so he entertained us for a while - stretching, rolling over, enjoying the sun. John collected some driftwood, we basked in the sun. I waded out to one of the rock outcroppings and found sea urchins, a sea cucumber and some relatively unexciting fish. The way the waves broke over the rocks was actually far more interesting to watch (left). By 1:30 or so we were all sunned out and so drove into Hanapepe in search of diversion and lunch. We found both!

     

Driving through "downtown" Hanapepe, we were struck by the old truck that was being used a planter. It was parked next to Giorgio's Gallery. We learned that it is one of his props (and indeed, we did see several paintings of it in the gallery) so of course we had to take turns posing with it (below) We were quite taken by all of his paintings but at the moment they seem out of our price range so we settled for admiration rather than purchase. We stopped at a couple other galleries in town, walked across the swinging bridge (right) just for fun, and had a delightful lunch at the vegetarian Hanapepe Cafe. Nice people, great food.

On the way back to Koloa, we stopped at the Waimea Valley overlook which offered an awesome view, but not better than the canyon/ valley pictures we have from our hikes. After another brief stop at Scotty's Music in Kalaheo (to pick up some ukelele chord charts and music books) we went back to the cottage. John and Dave went shopping; Katie and I scouted good sunset locations but it was a dud this evening due to the clouds. Gail got back safely and told us about her long hike into the canyon. Since we had a big late lunch in Hanapepe, we just ate leftovers for supper tonight, along with some sushi and salad that the guys brought back from their shopping trip. We headed to bed early since the alarms go off at 5 AM tomorrow.

         

Wednesday Jan 5: We were very prompt and actually got to the Holo Holo office for checkin at 5:50 AM. Although when we called last night the weather looked good, this morning they said north winds had come up again, making it too dangerous to do the Na Pali part. Instead we would go all around Ni'ihau - known as the "forbidden island" because it is privately owned and not open to the general public. We are definitely "general public" so we had to be careful to honor their privacy. The sun didn't even come up until we were out on the water (see sunrise at left). The boat picture on the right was taken after we got back when there was enough light to see!

Our day included a couple of lovely rainbows (this first one is a double if you look closely on the left side) and lots of bottlenosed dolphins. These 4 were part of a larger group that was running alongside the boat for a while, playing with us.

     

We also saw some spinner dolphins - they leap straight up and spin around! But they were too fast for me to get any pictures. We had some geology lessons - see the vertical lava trail formations below left; and we saw an occasional mountain goat peeking out of a cave in the side of the cliffs (below right). Some folks saw big horn sheep as well but I missed them.

        

You can tell from the picture at the right that, while it was very nice in the sun when we were still, when the boat was moving, we piled on sweatshirts and jackets against the wind chill. You also get a clue about the wind from the hair!

It was the right season to see loads of humpback whales. They would spout and sometimes breech (leap out of the water). We also saw some jumping straight up - what Chris, our captain, characterized as a "pop up" primarily for looking around. He also said it often meant they were getting nervous, so when that occurred, we backed off and moved away from them. Below the whales are another rainbow and the place where we stopped for snorkeling for a half an hour or so. Those who went in said it was as crystal clear as it looks but also very cold! (I wimped out but the other 4 said it was definitely worth it.) We also saw manta rays that skimmed along the top of the water but didn't come out to have their pictures taken.

      

   

By the time we got back in mid-afternoon it had clouded over so I just did some laundry and we read for a while. I was challenged to choose a place for my birthday dinner the next night. Dave downloaded the digital pictures to his laptop and we enjoyed the slide shows. Actually we had dozens of pictures of empty water or splashes where we had just missed dolphins, whales, mantas! The wildlife pictures that worked best were taken with our film cameras. There is just enough delay with the digitals that it's hard to catch something that happens very quickly, although Dave did take a nice video segment of the dolphins swimming around the boat.

We walked across the street to check out sunset possibilities but once again, the clouds were in the wrong places (very low). Went to Brenneke's Broiler (reservations suggested) for supper. It was really very good and not more overpriced than anything else on the island. Good seafood, friendly people, good service. Nice salad bar!