Sunday February 15 - the last day

Sunday dawned with clear skies.  With the lack of clouds, the sunrise wasn't as much of an enticing photography subject, however the moon was still out when I wandered down to the beach, so I grabbed a few pre-dawn shots.

The original plan had been to eat breakfast in the room, however since we didn't have to be out until 10, we figured we had time to go back to the Olympic Cafe for a full meal and fresh coffee.  I had the oatmeal again, and we got into a conversation with another table full of tourists while we waited for our food.
After a satisfying meal, we drove back to the condo for our mad-dash shower and packing.  It took a bit of scrambling and creative shoving of clothing, but in the end we walked out the door of the condo at exactly 10:00 a.m. on the dot (though the bags were not quite airplane ready, as we grabbed everything out in shopping bags just to get out the door on time and figured we would sort out the details of packing later)
Our flight wasn't scheduled to leave until nearly midnight, so we had pretty much a full day to wander around, so long as we didn't get into any water-related fun.  We turned right and drove north up the island, stopping at lookouts along the way and soaking in the scenery and watching surfers in the distance. We contemplated trying a new restaurant for lunch, but we enjoyed eating at the Dolphin so much, and felt like we should take advantage of the perfectly blue skies, so we took a table outside at the Dolphin in Hanalei.

I enjoyed the lunch salad with grilled ono

From lunch, we continued up the highway back to the northern-most driving point, Ke'e Beach.  While we'd had no trouble parking the week prior, today the entire area was jam-packed.  Given the crowds, photography would prove to be difficult so we back-tracked down the highway to the town of Hanalei.  We hopped out in the shopping area to pick up a few snacks, some coffee mugs from the local roaster, and of course a shave ice for G.

While G enjoyed her shave ice, I wandered the grounds seeking out these cute little chestnut mannikin.  They are common, but I found their unusual blue beaks to be exotic enough :)

Heading back towards Kapa'a, we stopped off at another viewpoint and found a flat area of easily accessible tide pools and I hauled the gear down to do some shooting.

Tidepools from the fisheye... clever!

While we meandered the tidepools, we were approached by a volunteer who told us that a monk seal was asleep just on the other side of the rocky outcropping.  The volunteers keep track of the seals, and when there is a report of a seal sleeping on the beach, they race out to surround the seal with "do not disturb" signs.  The volunteer invited me to come down by her station to take pictures of the sleeping seal.

After quite a long photo shoot of the seal (she kept moving around and I grabbed a lot of great shots from different angles) we headed back up to the car to move on, then D spotted spouts of water off in the distance.  Whales!  I figured we were safe enough to whale watch from the cliffs (they won't ram the cliffs, right?) so I plugged my 300mm onto the camera, along with my teleconverter, used the door frame as a brace and pointed out to the spouts.

No joke, I took about 800 photos, most of which are simply a blue horizon line.  I put my camera on rapid-fire so that I would be more likely to capture the action... I have a lot to delete, and none of these are worthy of blowing up to poster size, but they are a great memory and I got some pretty decent action considering how far off in the distance they were.

Fin-slapping the water

Two fins slapping together

Whale tail!

As the afternoon stretched into evening, I got my fill of shoreline whale watching, and we loaded up the gear and headed towards the airport.  We'd contemplated having dinner back at Oasis on the Beach, but it felt bitter-sweet to park there again after having checked out already, and I wanted to be closer to the airport, so we drove down to Lihue instead.  There were several restaurants within walking distance of the big Marriott, so we just parked there and meandered around.  We decided to try out Kukui's Bar and Grill located pool-side in the Marriott.

It is a beautiful setting, the pool has these massive Roman style columns and bridges over the water, however there seemed to be a disconnect between the hostess and wait staff, as we were seated and had nobody acknowledge us for at least half an hour (and the hostess had disappeared for most of that time, so we couldn't find her to ask her where our waiter might be)  He was apologetic, but it was obvious to us that he was being seated with too many tables at once, and since we had a good 3 hours to eat dinner and drive maybe 3 miles, we weren't too worried.

My dinner was really great, I had a nice salad to start with, and the grilled opah for dinner

They didn't have balsamic vinegar, so they brought me a balsamic reduction... which I happen to like, but makes for a sweet and sticky salad dressing.

SUCH good fresh fish everywhere we went!

After dinner it was time to face the reality of having to travel back home.  We pulled all the luggage out of the car and rearranged everything into checked luggage vs. carryon, calculated who would carry what where, and finally resigned ourselves to going to the airport.  Our flight had been delayed, out to about 12:30 a.m., so after having the bags quadruple checked for any produce, we settled ourselves in a quiet corner of the seating area and waited.  

Boarding was a relatively swift process, and aside from the girls behind us trying to use D's seat as a footrest (which he quickly remedied with a loud "You wanna stop kicking me in the head please?") almost all the passengers spent most of the flight attempting to sleep sitting up like sardines in a can.

It is, honestly, quite miserable to try to sleep on a plane on an overnight flight... but had we opted for the day flight we would have missed the seal and the whales and everything else we managed to squeeze into the last day.  In the end, sitting on a plane for 5.5 hours will be uncomfortable whether you are sleeping or awake, and once we got home we all just crashed for a decent nap in our own beds anyway.  

And as I have 77GB of images to work on, I'll leave this blog for now and get to editing these, and the shots from Jamaica last year.  

Thanks for coming along!

Saturday February 14

Our last full day on Kauai dawned a bit humid... the rain was still working it's way out, so D went down the street to get us a couple of coffees while I debated about what equipment to bring down to the beach for sunrise. There was no good shelter down there to hide my camera bag under, so I thought it best to just bring the time-lapse in the weatherproof case.

The cloud cover was heavy, but the sun breaks through eventually.

It turned out that the coffee stand was celebrating a 5^th year anniversary, so they were giving away all their coffee drinks for free all day. How cool!

We decided to take a drive back up highway 580 and check out the conditions for hiking, so we grabbed breakfast in the room while we gathered our hiking gear together. We stopped across the street to pick up some lunch food, packed it in D's daypack, and hit the road.

Partway up 580 we stopped at a few sites...

Poli'ahu Heiau - Another ancient Hawaiian site

'Opaeka'a Falls

Having fun with my Edge 80 Optic looking down to the Wailua River

 ...then continued up the road to the trail head for the Kuilau Ridge Trail.  The path was damp but looked solid, so we changed into our hiking shoes, grabbed our poles, and hit the trail. I pulled out the 300mm to hike with as I'd read that this was a fantastic spot for birding. Not more than 10 feet into the trail, a barn owl picked up and took flight right in front of us, crossing the path and heading further into the forest. It was way too quick to get a shot of it, but it was an amazing site and one that I will not ever forget!

The bird songs are amazing at the beginning of this trail, however the birds are incredibly shy, and the foliage so thick that it was difficult to get a clear shot of any bird once I did spot them. We stopped several times, zeroing in on a particularly loud song off to one side or the other, but the little buggers were too swift for very many pictures. We came across a couple of lizards who would stand still long enough for me to grab a few shots, but most of my photography that day ended up being of the amazing views and foliage.

Hoofing it with the gear... all 22 pounds of it

Up, up, and away!

A close up of the rainbow eucalyptus tree bark

About a mile and a half into the hike, we reached a plateau of grassy field and a picnic shelter which was the perfect place to stop for lunch. As we ate and rested, I wandered around the edge of the plateau taking shots to be stitched into panoramics later. There was a little cattle egret hunting lizards, he seemed to be pretty laid back as long as I didn't approach him too quickly.

Nice view!

Lunch time!

My first attempt at a panoramic, blogger restricts the size, but I'll link to them when I get into editing these more.  The highest peak on the left side, under the clouds, is the rainiest spot in the world.  Wai'ale'ale receives an average annual rainfall of 430 inches.

As we ate, the wind began to really howl. It blew out the humidity and clouds, but we had to keep a good grip on our food to keep it from blowing away. After a good break and refueling, we continued on the trail. We hiked down behind the ridge, which blocked the wind for a bit, then emerged along another exposed ridge where D kept losing his hat.

Continuing along the ridge

We reached the end of the ridge trail, then I switched up my gear to be holding a wider angle lens and we began the trek back to the car.  The wind had become more steady now... I could hear it coming from the distance sounding like an approaching jet engine.

Standing on the ridge looking out towards the ocean and Kapa'a... I can see my house from here!

G leaning into the strong wind on the ridge

Stopping to load film.  Because I'm not truly happy shooting unless I have at least one film camera.

I paused to admire the tall rainbow eucalyptus trees, then some branches started breaking and falling from the wind so we decided to pick up the pace and get back to the car.

Looking up at the Makaleha Mountains from the trailhead parking area, the layers of green are just astounding.

Driving back towards the condo, the clouds had cleared completely so we stopped off at the Poli'ahu Heiau once more for some shots with better lighting.

Back at the condo, D and G readied themselves for the pool while I backed up my photos.  I realized I'd not taken any photos of the condo, so I thought I'd share the view.  This is where I sat when on my laptop, on the lanai just outside my bedroom.  Birds would frequent the palm tree right at eye-level, down below is the pool area and beyond that is the ocean.

Back in the room, G was anxious to get a little more swimming time in.  I did this one slide to capture the experience on video, then parked myself in a hot tub to rest my tired feet and shoulders.

To be quite honest, D and I both forgot that being Valentine's Day would mean that restaurants would be booked up for dinner.  D began calling places close by and found that the Wahoo restaurant right across the street had just had a cancellation, so we put our names down and showered up for dinner.  I had the shrimp and scallops dinner, and subbed a baked potato for the mashed that usually comes with it.

It wasn't bad, but wasn't my favorite dinner on the island and I probably wouldn't go out of my way to go back there on a return trip.

I did not even want to start to think about packing, so we just did a general look-over to make sure we knew where the suitcases were, then crashed for the night.

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.

Thursday February 12

Thursday was the earliest day we'd had planned... up at 5:30 to get out the door with all the photography and snorkel gear by 6:15 to get to Port Allen by 7:15 check-in for our Captain Andy's catamran tour of the Na Pali Coast which started at 8 am. We had already rescheduled our trip from the previous Tuesday, which had looked to be rough seas (and we were right) but even with the wind dying down, we were advised that they would be unable to go north to Na Pali due to the high seas on that side of the island. 

 Safety first, right?

We'd anticipated this, and the company is great about offering refunds or reschedules, whatever makes the passenger happy.  We decided to go ahead with the trip since I was really excited about seeing the wildlife.  Our trip was to include breakfast and sight seeing from the water, the potential to find sea turtles, spinner dolphins, and humpback whales, then over to a good snorkeling spot. After all the water fun, we would have a bar-b-q lunch and enjoy the ride back to the harbor.

The ride started out great... though we traveled south with the land sight-seeing on the port side, I picked myself a spot on the starboard side to look out to the ocean for whales. We saw a lot of spouts way off the coast and a few breaks of a tale now and then, but nothing very close. Within the first hour of the ride we saw several sights along the shore, and a couple of small pods of spinner dolphins.

Allerton Gardens from the water

Spinner immediately below me

D caught this shot off the port side

The crew had a couple guys at the bow of the boat watching for wildlife – both for the passengers to observe and for the catamaran to avoid. At one point I saw the bow guy raise both hands in fists and turn them quickly – the signal to STOP NOW! - the captain powered down the engines immediately, but it was too late and we heard a clunk... a sea turtle had surfaced right in front of the boat too close to stop in time. There was an uneasy moment where we all looked at each other, hoping that the turtle just bounced off the hull uninjured. I have no idea how hard their shells are, but I'm hopeful that the little guy is tough.

The tour continued on, and we were able to spot some turtles a little way in front of us (this time the captain was able to slow and putter up to them from a safe distance)

The lighting was bad, but that is a little sea turtle head

We got a family shot during a break in the action

This was pretty much my spot for the whole ride.

We slowed for another pod of spinner dolphins, which bounced around in our wake as we passed. After a bit more sight-seeing along the coast, the captain turned the boat toward the ocean to head out to where the whales were spouting. They were still a great distance ahead of us, no sign of even a swirl directly in front of us. Then, just as the captain began to pick up speed, a 40 foot humpback began to surface directly in front of us. It was so close that I couldn't see the swirl ahead of the bow... the crewman up front had just started to raise his hands, the whale hadn't even surfaced but then came the sickening sound of impact, the entire catamaran jolted port and nearly came to a standstill. It felt as though a building came up and slammed into the bow. Some people were wondering if we'd hit a reef or a log, but as shocked as I was, and as much as I didn't want to believe it, I knew nothing could have made that sound other than a whale.

The whale had begun to rise just in front of the catamaran... the crewman up front just started to see the water displacement between the two hulls, then the back of the whale hit the interior bow side of the port hull. Most of the passengers raced to the port side to see the whale come up sideways, take a breath, and dive back down.

Unfortunately nobody saw the whale surface again, and we fear that the impact might have broken the whale's back.

I had been leaning on the starboard rail, camera out and scoping the spouts off in the distance. Thankfully the sides are wires that give. When the whale hit, I was jolted to the left, but immediately braced myself and pushed myself back into the wires which stretched to catch me. D was just behind me, leaning against a support for the railing which bruised his hip when he bounced into it. G had been sitting in the center on top of the life rafts and was shaken, but didn't move.

I knew the hull was breached, and I immediately gathered with D and G on the starboard side in case we had to abandon ship. Logically I knew that one of the reasons we chose a catamaran tour was because of the dual hulls, but I still couldn't help but picture scenes from Titanic after that impact. One passenger had been leaning on a railing and was thrown into it, bruising and probably cracking her lower ribs. Some of the crew rushed to help her, another checked other passengers for injuries, and another leaned over the rail to check the damage. In the commotion, I saw him signal to the captain “We've gotta go back... big hole”. A crewman dove off the front of the boat to check the damage... there was an indentation in the hull which was at least 2 feet across, and a breach a bit smaller than the dent. The crew had everyone shift to the starboard side (even days later I'm still awestruck that most everyone ran TOWARDS the damaged side... oy...) the sails came down, and the captain turned the boat back to the port.

I did not take any photos for the rest of the boat trip, I can't explain why, but it just felt wrong.

I'm still so heartbroken about the whole experience... not because our tour was cut short, but I feel terrible about the whale, I feel so bad for the crew, and for the woman who was injured. We came away relatively unscathed (bruises aside) which I'm eternally grateful for, but it is just such a tragic accident.

We spoke to the captain on our return trip... in 25 years he has never had any sort of accident, nobody has ever heard of any boat hitting a whale off Kauai. He's never hit ANY wildlife, and that day he hit a turtle and a whale. Back at the office, the employees of the company were incredibly apologetic and offered a full refund or a reschedule. D and I talked about our options on the ride back... I'd really wanted to do the whale watching, but I did not want to get up at 5:30 in the morning and have to race to the other side of the island again. The weather was supposed to turn windy again, so we wouldn't be able to see the Na Pali coast on this tour anyway. And hell, we live by Puget Sound, it's not as if we can't see whales there! So I opted for the full refund.

It took me a while to stop crying over the tragedy of the morning... we wandered a little aimlessly for a while and decided to pull into a shopping center near Poipu to find lunch. After some meandering through shops we settled into a place called Tortilla Republic and had some excellent Mexican food. And drinks.

The waves were still a little rough off the coast, but I'd heard about a little protected cove nearby at Lawa'i Beach that was supposed to be good for snorkeling. The beach itself was a little small, and rocky, but the amount of snorkels in the water indicated that it was a pretty good spot, so we gave it a shot.

Pretty amazing stuff for just a tiny swim off shore!

I can't remember how to embed a video on blogger, and I'm too tired to look it up, so here is a link to a short video of the fishies 

In the end we got half our boat ride, and found our lunch and snorkeling adventures on our own.

From there we headed back to the room, driving through the tree tunnel road on our way.

I got this by sticking the point-and-shoot out the sun roof.  D sped up and slowed down all the way up the road so we could time the shot with no traffic.

 G and I got into the pool while I hit the hot tub for a bit, then we went back to the room to clean up for dinner. We'd made reservations for Oasis on the Beach right in front of our complex. 

It was a day that called for a mai tai

Our table right by the ocean

Amazing beet and arugula salad, with macadamia nuts

Seared ono on a pumpkin puree with wing beans.  The beans actually look like X-wing fighters.

Our waiter was fantastic, and through our conversation we learned that he used to live in San Francisco so we chatted for quite a while about the California coast, from Carmel through the bay and up to the city. It was a lovely and relaxing end to an otherwise rough day.