Wednesday our itinerary began with a little bit of reading on the balcony. Our internal clocks hadn’t done a really good job of reorienting to Kauai time… so we both woke up and were good to go well before we would have back home in Pennsylvania. We then drove to the small boat dock on the south western coast (more like west south coast) where we began our “adventure boating.” Since the catamaran snorkel cruise I had wanted to rent was all booked up we split our boating into two trips – the sunset catamaran trip on Monday for my birthday and then the trip today, which was a zodiak speed boat trip around the Napali coast. The boat was about 18′ long, with ten tour members – us, a dad and his five daughters (maybe one brought a friend) and a couple on their honeymoon. The three crew (Chase, Damien, and Maddie) were all really excited to be back to working! Maddie said she had fourteen months off due to covid. Kauai only has 4 ICU beds that are capable of handling covid patients so they had to be really strict with their precautions.
I call today the adventure boat because the ride in the zodiak would not be what anyone would call smooth. And that was on purpose! It was a really fun trip out (albeit a slightly tedious trip back) zooming up and down waves and generally getting everyone all wet. It was really awesome seeing the coastline again, and since our boat was much smaller we were able to go into some of the caves that dot the coastline. During the winter the surf can be up to 60′ – which makes for some pretty dramatic erosion of the hillside caves. Basically pressurized water sprays onto the ceiling! After a couple hours of boating we landing at the secluded beach/historic Hawaiian settlement of Nualolo Kai. This area was special primarily because it had its own reef, which provided significant protection from the winter waves that would crash down. After getting on shore we quickly went back out for about thirty minutes of snorkeling. Their gear was really nice and we had no issues with water or fogging and were able to see a ton of fish! After snorkeling we ate lunch then did a little tour of the historic village area. It was pretty cool seeing how things would’ve been laid out, and how they were able to use the geography of the location to their significant advantage.
We were both a lot more tired after the boat trip than we thought we would be and decided to just relax at the hotel and try to get to bed early. The next day we didn’t really have too much planned… and it definitely showed. Whoops. We got to the Koloa Rum Company to sign up for tastings at around 10:30 – only to learn that tastings had to be signed up for basically starting at 10. So we weren’t able to sign up for one until 4. With my mental gameplan already in shambles we began to drive to the north end of the island to the Kilauea Wildlife Refuge where we (sorta) had 2 pm reservations. We got there too early to go in, so we drove over to Secret beach which you have to hike to. Unfortunately that meant we had about ten minutes to actually see the beach (my mental gameplan was to do the beach after the wildlife refuge). Anyway… we then went over to the refuge where albatrosses and tons of over birds nest. That was really cool, although we didn’t get to see any albatrosses use their sweet runway to take off.
After our 45 minutes of allotted bird watching were up we drove back down for the rum tasting. It was a high energy event – definitely not what I was thinking about with a tasting. We didn’t get to try the chocolate rum but bought some anyway because that was the whole reason for going there! We drove over the the Kauai Beer Company in Lihue where I got a flight and some food and Adela got a beer and some food. The beer and atmosphere were pretty good there.
Our final day on the island was a little bit of a lazy day. We woke up, cooked some breakfast, and then went over to Shipwreck Beach where we posted up in the shade and listened to the waves for a couple hours. For lunch we got noodles and one last serving of poke. After that it was time to pack up and check out of the hotel before beginning to drive back to the airport. We stopped at the Kauai Beer Company again for some more food and drinks before dropping our car off. We were pretty scared when we did because the attendant got in and exclaimed “Oh shit!” But it was just because he didn’t know they had any cars with all leather interiors – I think we were the second people to rent the car! We got to the airport perhaps too early as nobody was there to check our bags for at least twenty minutes, but we relaxed before beginning the long and uneventful journey back home.
