Day 9 - The REALLY Wild Side

For those of you following the posts, I apologize for not posting yesterday's events in the evening as I have been doing. We had gotten up very early for our major activity and, in the evening, had gone out to our "dress up dinner" which, on Kauai, means long pants and an aloha shirt for me, a very fetching dress for Dianna (thanks for the loan Rochelle). Afterward, I was just too darn tired to think. So here are the events of Saturday...I'll do a separate post for Sunday.

You may remember that in last Tuesday's post about our surfing lesson, I mentioned a surprise activity for Saturday. Well, here's what it was...we took a catamaran ride up the Na Pali coastline. Wow! Absolutely stunning scenery. Dianna took the "real camera" so we got some absolutely beautiful shots. There are too many for a blog post (102), so I am considering whether to post them on my Picasa online album or on Flicker. I'll post my decision later so you can see all of our shots online at your leisure.

We started our day at 5:15 a.m., (or O'Dark-15) to make it down to Port Allen for our check-in at 7:30. We sailed on Catamaran Kahanu (Breath of Life, in Hawaiian...pretty cool, eh?) shortly after 8:00 for our 5-hour tour of the Na Pali coastline. This is one of the smallest catamarans making this trip and our captain is a native Hawaiian, whose family can trace it's roots to a small valley that opens to the Na Pali coast from 1632. They have an oral history that goes back to the 1500's. He not only knows this coastline and these waters like the back of his hand, but he also loves his homeland. He was a bit gruff at first, eventually warming to the 12 passengers aboard his vessel. Because of his incredible knowledge, his status as a native Hawaiian, and the size of his vessel, we were able to go places the bigger tour companies aren't allowed to go. Some of the sea caves we backed into, for instance are usually reserved only for the smaller 'Zodiac' type rafts. The other big plus was the ability go into protected reef area for our stop to snorkel. I was so wishing I had an underwater camera for that.

Mere words cannot express how majestic and wild this stretch of rugged coastline looks in real life. The pictures can only begin to tell the story...but here goes.

As we rounded the point of land that marks the end of Polihale State Park (and the last of that 17-mile stretch of beach), we begin to see why this is such an attraction. These cliffs are at least 1,000 feet tall, and have been the backdrop for many, many movies. (Jurassic Park, King Kong, 6 Days, 7 Nights, to name a few.





Not too long after we saw the cliffs for first time up close, we got a wonderful surprise. We saw a pod of porpoise swimming lazily through the water. They were in what the captain described as an "alpha state", their equivalent of sleep swimming. In this state, they can rest but they are also have to breathe, so they maintain a slow, rhythmic motion. The captain stopped the boat and asked Dianna, who'd moved up front to take pictures, to sit on the front end of the catamaran. Porpoises are attracted to bright colors, and she was wearing this bright pink hat - they responded immediately by swimming right under her feet.




Okay, I could go on and on about the porpoises but on to some more shots of the cliffs.
If you closely in some of these shots you'll see ribbons of white...those are waterfalls coming from the runoff of Wai 'ale 'ale, the wettest spot on earth. It receivesover 440 inches of rain per year.


One of the caves created by the constant pounding of the ocean against the lava rock that forms this island. You can see that surf exploding from the back of the cave.

We were there on a extremely calm day, especially for this time of year. Even so, the surf is violent here. Getting in the water to swim here will get you killed.




Every mile has some breathtaking vista - we found the unique colors found at the base of this particular cliff really beautiful and interesting.

Please note, too, how clear the water is here. At this point we're probably in 35-40 ft. of water. It's like this all around the island where the bottom is either rock or reef. The sand bottom areas get significantly stirred up so the waves become brown.



Another of the sea caves...we're in pretty deep at this point, so I brightened up the picture a bit as we didn't have a flash with us. The same cave without the brightness enhanced...







Well, there you go! That's a few of them and, as I said, they still did not do justice to the place. You simply have to come here and see for yourself.

As for our "dress-up" dinner. We headed down to Poipu to The Beach House. Rated as Kauai's best restaurant several years' running and now we know why. Omigosh! Awesome food. We had wonderful food and one of the best deserts either of us have ever eaten. (Banana's Foster since you asked.)

Aloha!