The Garden Island

My parents are back in Kauai for their biennial trip, and Audrey, Aaron and me are here to join them. Today is day four of our trip, so I’ve obviously been terrible about writing journal entries. To remedy that, here’s a recap of the trip so far:

Day one saw us arrive and purchase obscene quantities of seared Ahi from the Koloa Fish Market. If you ever visit Kauai, put this place on your list, the Ahi is ridiculously good. From there we checked into our hotel and I spent more time in the lazy river and waterslide than is generally acceptable for a man in his forties.
On day two we jumped in the sea to do some snorkeling over at the reef near the Beach House restaurant. There was a bit of current parallel to the coast, and I made the unfortunate decision to exit the water onto some rocks rather than fighting the current back to our entry point; I’ve got a few new battle scars on my foot, hand and ribs to show for it, but we nevertheless had fun seeing an array of fish including an oriental flying gurnard that Audrey spotted. My parents arrived in the evening after a delayed flight and a myriad of other misadventures, so we joined them for rum drinks at sunset to help them forget their troubles.
Day three Audrey joined me for a morning scuba, leaving my parents to enjoy the massive breakfast buffet that is included in our hotel rate; my dad seemed to at least temporarily forget about the trip’s problems when faced with an omelette bar and a few dozen other breakfast choices. The currents were strong on our first dive but we still saw a few sharks, many turtles, and a bunch of other neat critters. After a rough surface interval that saw a couple of divers returning their breakfasts we jumped back into the water at Sheraton Caverns, which I previously referred to as “sea turtle wonderland“. That moniker held true again, as we saw dozens of turtles resting in the collapsed lava tubes as we swam around.
Today was an opportunity to go on an adventure with my brother, so based on a recommendation from the dive master we set off for the Nu’alolo trail, a 7.5 mile round trip that descended from the forests above Waimea Canyon down to the turret-like buttes of the Napali Coast, two thousand feet above the Pacific. We’re pretty sure “Nu’alolo” is Hawaiian for “slippery mud”, but the views at the end were definitely worth it.