Friday February 13

Friday morning dawned calmer for us, and D and I headed down to the beach to take a few photos at sunrise. I tried my hand at using our time-lapse camera, however I didn't realize how wide of an angle it shot, so I caught a lot of people in the scene (including myself)

One of my shots of the sunrise

After enjoying the morning light show, we decided to head into Kapa'a for breakfast. We checked out the breakfast menu at the Olympic Cafe and discovered that they had a “light” section of the menu which included granola and oatmeal. Finally, a breakfast out that I could partake in!

HUGE pancakes!

The Olympic Cafe is on the second floor of a building and is an open-air set up (the sides windows have no glass, only curtains to bring down when it rains) so the fresh ocean air blows through the restaurant. We sat near the open windows on the land side and watched the clouds blowing over the hills as we waited for our food. The wind had already been picking up since sunrise, which told us that even if we had tried to reschedule the boat trip, it would have been canceled or not as enjoyable anyway.

As we ate breakfast and talked about potential plans, I noticed a rainbow coming and going over the Sleeping Giant hill behind Kapa'a. We'd been considering going hiking today, however the weather looked to be blowing in over the hills where we wanted to hike. As we left the restaurant we checked a couple of shops we'd wanted to visit, the were not open yet, but we did take note that they were both going to be closed on Saturday, so that left Friday to shop. Given the potential weather conditions, we opted for shopping Friday and maybe hike on Saturday. As we drove back to the condo, I watched the light changing over the Sleeping Giant and scoped out a spot to take photos. I found a little turn-around which made for a perfect viewing spot, so I dropped D and G back at the condo, grabbed my gear, and headed back up a couple blocks to the turn-around.

The Sleeping Giant - do you see the profile?  He is laying on his back, you can see the forehead and chin, then the chest below that.

This is as close to complete as this rainbow showed.

I had a great time moving at a slow pace, changing lenses and positions and attempting a pano... the wind was really picking up and I noticed the rainbow would grown and shrink and grow again. Once the rainbow subsided completely and the clouds began to block out the hills, I packed up the gear and headed back to the condo.

We gathered our shopping-and-potential-photography stuff together and headed down to downtown Kapa'a just as the stores were opening. D had planned on checking out the ukulele store, and it was conveniently just a few doors away from a cute little fabric store, so while D immersed himself in the musical experience, G and I did some damage at the fabric store. The fabric store was small in scale, but packed full of inspiration... I picked up several patterns and a couple of wall hanging kits.

G and I poked around in a few more shops, ducking out of the occasional wispy rain showers, while D completed his decision making. Upon acquiring his new red-wine burst ukulele, we decided to seek out lunch. We caught the scent of an outdoor BBQ place called Chicken in a Barrel, so we decided to give that a whirl.

The chickens are truly everywhere on the island.  Seems like a dangerous place for this one to be hanging out though.

The barrels where they cook the food... hence the name

I had the kalua pork.

From lunch we began to head up the coast to seek out photo opportunities. By this time the rain had come and gone a few times, but the wind was steadily getting worse. I tried getting out at a beach to take photos of the waves crashing, but the sand blew so hard it felt as though a thousand tiny pumice stones were being shot at the back of my legs. I thought we might have better luck getting off the beach, so we turned south for a bit and then west towards some ancient sites labeled on my map.

This is the Holoholoku Heiau - an ancient Hawaiian temple presumed to have been previously used for human sacrifice.

We stopped in a couple of spots and I managed to get some decent photos, then the real rain set in and between that and the wind, the conditions were just too poor for shooting without potentially hurting the equipment. We headed back to the condo, where G was convinced that it would be fun to swim in the pool while it was raining because “it is still warm enough!” To her dismay, the rain let up just as we were ready to hit the water, but in any case she got to enjoy a bit more pool time while I settled myself into a hot tub.

After returning to the room to clean up for dinner, the rain set in for real... big drops pouring down, wind whipping. None of us felt like wandering to a restaurant so we opted to order caprese salad and pizza from Bobby V's next door. G and I walked down to get it rather than wait for delivery... that is when I noticed just how windy it had become.

Hmm... that sign was upright just this morning...

We enjoyed dinner in our room and I went to bed pretty early, falling asleep to the rushing wind.