Tuesday February 10

One of the big To Do's on my Kauai list was a visit to the Kilauea Lighthouse and National Wildlife Refuge at the northernmost tip of the island. This morning we all woke up early, had a quick breakfast in the room, then packed up the gear and headed north to Kilauea.  Along the way we stopped at a cute little coffee shop to grab a couple of iced cold brew coffees.

We arrived to the lookout over the lighthouse about 20 minutes before the park opened, so we hopped out of the car to take a few photos of the view looking out towards the lighthouse.

I also encountered a couple of Nenes... (another check on my Kauai bucket list) Nenes are the state bird of Hawaii and are endangered. I was incredibly excited to spot this bird and hopped out of the car with my 300mm, but to my surprise they came towards me instead of waddling away, so with this encounter I mostly managed some pretty head shots.

We spent over 3 hours in the park, wandering around grabbing shots, eating a picnic lunch in the car, and bird watching.  I'd hoped the large seabirds would float on the thermals closer to the viewpoint, however they seemed to favor the distant cliffs, only passing overhead once in a while.  The winds were moving fast so they were difficult to track with the zoom.

A - Brown Booby

Iwa - Great Frigatebird (on the left) and an A - Brown Booby (on the right)

Another A - Brown Booby

Family shot at the lighthouse.

We also spotted some whales way offshore, but they were too far for good shots.

On the way out of the refuge we spotted a small family of Nenes on the side of the road, I hopped out to get a few shots of their full bodies

The guardrail is a terrible backdrop, but look!  Baby Nene!

From here we continued on the highway to a farmer's market in Hanalei. We bought some fresh slices of pie and several fruits.

These are rambutan... you break them open and the inside is sort of like a sweet peeled grape, but with a giant seed in the center.

From here we drove over a few blocks to the beach side of the town and grabbed a parking spot on the beach. We'd brought bathing suits, however the wind and waves were to heavy for swimming, so we just enjoyed watching the weather move over the Na Pali coast in the distance. 

 G had some fun feeding the birds on the beach... it was so odd to me to see red-crested cardinals all over the beach, as I consider them a southern US bird.

As dinner time approached, we read through a few menus in Hanalei but opted to drive back down to the Dolphin. This time we took a table inside where I had more options from the full menu. I was both excited and impressed that this restaurant's philosophy is to simply grill the fish... no sauces with ingredients to worry about, just salt, pepper, and heat. I had a terrific piece of grilled uku.

It is an interesting firm, white fish. The best way I could describe it is this: let's say you are on the Enterprise and you tell the computer you want steak and lobster for dinner, but the computer messes up and blends the two types of meat instead of giving you a piece of beef and a piece of lobster. When dipped in butter, the flavor was like lobster, but the texture was like a medium piece of steak.

Day of shooting ends with a mai tai!  I think they called this drink the No Ki Oy.

D was happy with his sushi.

After dinner we headed back to the condo to clean up and prepare for the next day. I wanted to hit the canyon early in hopes of better weather, so I sorted out my camera gear and went straight to bed.