Kauai vacation
April 27th - Catamaran Ride along Na Pali coast
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The next day we had a nice trip. We took Captain Andy's Catamaran sailing adventure. Since we had now seen the Na Pali coast by land and air, we decided to get a view from the sea. Hopefully, Melanie wouldn't get too sea sick! We got up very early and drove to the south shore at Port Allen. We took the morning trip, because I figured that winds are calmer in the morning, so maybe there would be fewer waves.
The trip included snorkeling. The captain decided that we ought to try the snorkeling before we reached the north shore, because the weather later in the day did not look promising. So we stopped at a cove on the south shore and spent maybe 45 minutes in the water. His judgement of the weather proved correct, it was raining when we sailed back on the return trip, though I suppose if you are snorkeling in the ocean, it doesn't really matter if you are getting rained upon.
Back on the catamaran again, we saw spinner dolphins. These animals like to race alongside boats, and then leap into the air and spin. It was pretty cool to see, I don't know why I didn't capture any photos. We were told that these creatures don't survive in captivity, which is why you don't see them at Sea World. It was pretty cool to see them out on the open ocean.
This is one of the first cliffs we saw sailing along the Na Pali coast. I ended up taking a ton of pictures, because the scenery is so dramatic. These are the best pictures, though they don't show up that well, it was an overcast day, which turned to rain just as we finished our trip along the shore. The view from the ocean shows how dramatically steep the cliffs are.
The further we got to the north side, the taller and greener the cliffs got.
The boat captain told us that in an old Hollywood movie, they filmed a biplane flying through this cave in the cliff. It seems an incredible story - that cave doesn't look very big at all, so maybe he was making up tall tales for credulous tourists.
The waterfall here spills directly into the ocean. It is fresh water, so the natives would manuever their kayaks directly below the stream so that they could get a drink of water without having to return to shore.
The steep cliff here clearly shows a waterfall was present in the past.
At the base of the Na Pali cliffs, a waterfall empties into the ocean.
Too bad it wasn't a bright sunny day, or this landscape would appear even more dramatic. I guess we will have to make a return trip and make a second attempt on a sunny day!
I believe these pictures are Kalalau Beach, with a waterfall at the base of some incredible green pinnacles of volcanic rock. This is the destination of the 17 mile hike from Kee Beach if you did the entire trail. I believe most visitors to this beach arrive via kayak.
I believe these two photos catch a glimpse of the Kalalau Trail, which is supposed to be a strenous hike, not for the faint of heart, because there are precipitous cliff drops along one side. In the first picture, I think you can see the trail as a diagonal slash on the cliff side, just below on the middle of the picture, in the lower left side. On the second picture, I think the trail is horizontal on the cliff, bisecting the waterfall.
Sea Cave, with a water fall flowing down the outside cliff
Na Pali cliff, wreathed in rain clouds.
This multi-threaded waterfall flows out of cliffs beneath an array of volcanic pinnacles.
A big mass of trees growing out of the cliff face. Perhaps there is abundant water here? It looks too steep for trees, but I guess the vegetation can hang on.
Obviously, Kauai was once an active volcano. There are lava tubes through out the landscape. When the lava reached the sea, the lava poured out of the tunnel. Now the tunnels are exposed by erosion, so they appear as sea caves. The first two photos show the mouths of lava tubes. The steep cliffs are also eroded by the waves, sometimes the ocean carves caves or tunnels - the second two photos show caves formed by the sea. You can clearly see the rain clouds in the first photo, the weather got worse and worse as we went along. I am glad we didn't try for the afternoon trip.
Here are three shots looking up at the towering cliffs. Impressive! In the first photo you can see where waterfalls used to flow down the steep cliff face.
This view is looking up into a sea cave, which once was a lava tube. Apparently, an underground stream now flows in the lava tube, and you can see it inside the cave, falling into the ocean.
This was the last photo I took on the boat ride. We had sailed along the Na Pali cliffs, I believe that little spot of green poking out around the base of the cliff is Kee Beach. I have mentioned the distinctive rock spires we saw at the start of our hike along the first stretch of the Kalalau Trail, and those same rock formations are visible here. I also got a picture of those rock spires from the helicopter ride - so we saw them from land, air and sea.
The catamaran turned around at the this point. Because of the bad weather, we didn't put up the sails, but instead motored back to harbor. We drove back to the hotel and showered off the sea salt from the snorkeling. Melanie rested a bit, but she survived the boat ride without sea sickness (thanks to Dramamine)! She even got to eat the lunch they provided. Later in the day we took a walk along the beach, south passed the Radison.
