Archive for May, 2005
After a full day on a 42′ boat I’m a little wobbly. Ugh. Regardless of that fact, today was a fantastic boat tour. Wow.
The day began at 9:30am as we pushed off shore at Port Allen on the HoloHolo Charters 42′ monohul “Northwind”. Right off the bat we saw a huge pod of spinner dolphins, probably close to 30. We saw another pod a bit further up the coast near Barking Sands Beach.
We finally hit Na’Pali Coast around 11am, viewing many of the sights up close because of the smaller boat. This is where I started getting a wee bit sea sick. Slowing down to a near crawl with large swells rocking the boat back and forth was not what the doctor ordered. This seemed to last forever until we finally hit the water at Nualolo Kai. Say hello to honu heaven.
There were at least 3 turtles the whole time we were in the water, more than an hour, and I’m pretty sure there was 5 unique turtles swimming about. We seemed to have happened upon a cleaning station as the turtles were constantly being cleaned by convict tangs with a stray chub here and there. Much to my delight I was able to get many, many photos of the turtles including shots with them being cleaned.
Much to my surprise there was also two white tip reef sharks hanging around. At one point one of them was brave enough to come within 3 feet of me before turning off course. Needless to say that scared the crap out of me. I was so freaked I didn’t even get a good picture! Argh!
I sure wish I got a better shot of the shark. But I gotta say I was pretty freaked out seeing that thing come straight at me, pictures were the last thing on my mind.
After the snorkel it was time to head back to Port Allen. But wait, there’s more! The captain had a fancy for big sea fishing and decided to drop 3 lines into the ocean and hope for the best. What he got was a huge yellow fin tuna!
All in all it was a great tour, more than anyone had expected and seeing the captain reel in that 160lbs tuna was a great closer for my money. I’d highly recommend checking out HoloHolo Charters if you’re ever on Kauai, they even take wee ones ages 2 and up.
As always, more photos in the Kauai gallery under day nine.
May 31st, 2005
Drove out to Ke’e Beach early this morning arriving at the parking lot nearing 8:15am. The surf was rough today with surfers out beyond the reef hitting up the waves. The high surf made snorkeling not so great but I was still able to get some good shots in today of more common reef fish. Check out the Kauai gallery for those.
Tomorrow we’ll be heading out on a boat tour of Na’pali with a one hour snorkel in a private bay, hoping to see some good sea life.
May 30th, 2005
“Honu, Honu, Honu!“, I shouted in my head. With my heart pounding I steadied the camera desperately trying to take pictures as fast as I could. What I saw before me was a Green Sea Turtle also called “Honu”. He was a loner drifting from Ho’ai Bay through the snorkeling haven of Beach House. Pretty lucky seeing a honu at Beach House due to the high amount of snorkeling traffic. I was able to get a short video clip of the honu as well which you can download.
I also saw an uncommon Crocodile Needlefish, the picture didn’t turn out so well but you can see it the day seven album. Saw a lot of butterfly fish today including Raccoon, Teardrop, 4 Spotted and Threadfin.
May 29th, 2005
Yesterday, day five, we traveled to a couple of out of the way beaches before settling on Lydgate State Park. The first place, Anahola Bay, was suppose to have good snorkeling. The problem was that the tide was extremely low exposing most of the reef we were suppose to snorkel over 
Hopping back into the car we traveled to Moloa’a Bay. The sea’s were quite rough yesterday making Moloa’a not such a great place to swim or snorkel. We left after about 30 minutes of chasing Aiden around in the surf.
The kids were pretty unhappy at this point so we hopped back into the car and drove to the safest bet on Kauai for kids, Lydgate State Park. Lydgate is special because they’ve built two large swimming pools out of natural lava right on the ocean. The enclosure is very protected even by the heavy surf on the east coast of Kauai. Needless to say both kids had a great time playing in the water and snorkeling. The parents had a great time not having to chase after the kids 
Today, day six, we decided to play it safe and re-visit Lydgate in the morning. This afforded us the chance to have Aiden take a full nap in the afternoon so we could actually go out to dinner for the first time since arriving. Thankfully the plan worked and we all had a nice dinner at Coconuts Island in Kapa’a. After dinner we did some light shopping and now everyone is tuckered out, ready for bed.
May 28th, 2005
Took more of a sight seeing day today although Autumn and I did some light snorkeling at Salt Pond Beach where we spotted this sunbathing monk seal.
We also toured the Wailua Falls and Glass Beach. Watched a spinner dolphin out at Glass Beach jump out of the water several times, hopefully I was able to catch it on video, he was a tough one to spot Booked a boat tour on Holoholo Charter for Tuesday out on Na’pali Coast. Should be a fun time!
May 26th, 2005
Man, I’d forgotten how fricking tired you get after snorkeling. After two days of snorkeling we’ll be taking a break tomorrow to view some of the above water sites.
I’ve made a small photo gallery of our trip photos so far. I’ve been uploading them with my Nokia 6620 phone connected to my laptop via bluetooth hence the lack of more than a few each night. Better than nothing right?
May 25th, 2005
The day started at 4:30am PDT. Funny thing was Autumn was already awake… No delays on our flights which was nice. Kids did pretty good, Aiden actually liked the plane so much he cried when we landed. The second time he was asleep so it wasn’t a problem
Didn’t do a whole heck of a lot other than the usual unpacking and food shopping. I did test out the underwater camera setup with the kids in the pool and I think it’s going to work really well. The photo is of Aiden while I was underwater. Just a test really but I thought it interesting.
We’re all pretty wrecked from the plane flights and the early morning wake up call so we’re going to bed a little early but late enough to try and avoid any jetlag.
May 23rd, 2005
It’s taken me a long time to ever hit level 60 in World of Warcraft. After more than one year of playing through closed beta, open beta, and now retail I’ve finally reached level 60 for the first time.
Yay for me.
May 20th, 2005
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