We both sitting here in our hotel from Hawaii waiting for the sunset. Apparently,the bay we are overlooking has the best photo op on the island for a sunset pic. Hopefully, they will turn out. Either way, we’ll post the pics on the site. While we are waiting for the sun to drop, I wanted to jot down thoughts of our stay on the island of Kauai. The last time I was there I was 7, none of it looked familiar! Kauai is such a green island due to the amount of rainfall they receive. It is truly a tropical paradise. We checked into our hotel on 7/7 after a very nice and relaxing plane ride from the mainland (that’s what everyone here calls the continental US). The hotel was beautiful. It had a very large courtyard with a huge Koi pond, palm trees, hammocks (which was one of my favorite things to do at the hotel), parrots, waterfalls, etc. It was even better than the pictures of the hotel on the web. The next day, we headed out of Kalapani Bay (where the hotel was) to Lihue to catch our Helicopter Ride. The ride was absolutely amazing. There were two spots in the front next to the pilot and Ryan and I were the lucky ones to sit in front! The ride started out on the helipad (with top gun music in the background) and the copter took off just like a plane. We toured the island starting out in Lihue and headed over the area where Jurassic Park was filmed. We flew over the Grand Canyon of the Pacific and up the Napali Coast. The Napali Coast was absolutely breathtaking with the bright blue waters crashing against the cliffs. After the Napali Coast, we flew to the Wai’ale’ale crater. The helicopter flew into the crater, hovered still in the air, and did a complete 360. It was pretty cool. Wai’ale’ale was the volcano that formed the island millions of years ago and it gets over 400 inches of rain a year (on average). It’s really not the amount of rain it gets, but the number of days it rains there. It rains 360 days a year on average. Pretty crazy to think of all that rain. Even though it was such a memorable experience, we still bought the DVD of our ride. After our helicopter ride, we did some driving around and saw a couple waterfalls, Wailua Falls and Opaeka’a Falls. We also did some snorkeling at a “kiddie” beach. The concierge at our hotel mentioned that this place was the best since it didn’t have an currents and it was calm. When we got there, all we saw were kids. We still snorkeled the area for about 15 minutes and headed out back to the hotel.
The next day we woke up bright and early to meet up with the SCUBA group for our 2 tank boat dive. Our first dive was about 40 minutes at the “Sheraton Caverns” (click here for video). We dove in caverns that were made from a lava flow millions of years ago. We saw some fish and several sea turtles. At the end of the dive, I still had air and while everyone else surfaced, I was able to stay down with the dive master a few more minutes. She pointed to a sea turtle that had a fish hook in his mouth (very sad). During our dive, Ryan took some amazing photos (see photo album) using an underwater case for his camera. The second dive was called the “Fish Bowl”. When we descended we knew exactly why it was named as such. There were thousands of fish in a school (don’t remember the name) close by. As I was diving, I ran into another school of black fish. They were not bothered by us at all. They hung around us for a while and it really felt like I was in an aquariam with fish. Between dives, we spent some time at the surface which made me feel a little ill. The boat rocked around and it took all of my concentration to keep from tossing my cookies in the ocean. I was able to recover though. I have to admit that I was not in a good mood during our rest time at the surface. After the dive, Ryan and I drove to the Spouting Horn which was at Po’ipu Bay. My dad says that this is where we went when I was 7. He said that he lifted me up on his shoulders so that I can reach a coconut on a coconut tree. Well, I tried to find the same tree, but had no luck. I’m sure the area has changed significantly in the past 25 years. After taking pictures at Spouting Horn we headed back to the hotel.
On Thursday (7/10), we headed out to Kauai Backcountry Adventures for our first Zip Line adventure. We drove out to this remote canyon (which turned out to be the area where a new Ben Stiller movie was filmed a couple months ago called Tropic Thunder). The course had 7 ziplines and was the third largest in the nation. The first zipline was a trial run to see if anyone was going to chicken out, no one did, so we continued to Line 2. Line two was the longest line of the course and it was alot of fun. Ryan recorded a movie on the camera of me coming down Line 2 (click here for video). Ryan also recorded a video of him ziping on a line over the river. It’s a cool video because it gives you a glimpse on what the view was like on the line (click here for video). At the end, we finished the course by taking the last zip line down to the swimming hole. It was too cold for me, but Ryan got in the water to cool off. After our zipline adventure, we headed to the airport to catch our flight to the Big Island. Kauai is such a beautiful island and we can’t wait to go back.
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