Kaua'i

We started off our day in Kauai with the second of our two planned excursions…a trip up the Wailua River to a place called fern grotto. They took us off onto a big bus to the River. The guide was funny and informative…telling us about Kauai. So many movies have been made on Kuaui: Jurassic Park, Elvis’ Blue Hawaii, From Here to Eternity, Raiders of the Lost Arc, etc, etc. We drove past the beach where From Here to Eternity..that very sexy beach scene..was filmed. OH! Forgot …my goodness…Fantasy Island was filmed here too…..when I learned that I was on the lookout all day for Tattoo. (da plane..da plane)

Before I talk about the excursion itself….I need to talk about the amazing beauty of this island. I have seen such amazing beautiful things in Hawaii…but nothing like Kauai. Mountains the likes of which I have never seen…covered in lush jungle green all the way to the top…rising up right next to the bluest ocean I have ever seen. Kauai is the oldest of the islands, and the lava has been pulverized to a red dirt and there is nothing of a volcano to be seen…just the most alive lush place I have ever seen.

We reached the river and got onto a flat bottom boat. There were musicians and hula dancers on board…but we were told they would entertain us on the return trip. On the way to Fern Grotto we heard narration of the river, the foliage, and the area we were about to visit. There was the most interesting flowering plant on the shores of the river…..flower is yellow, then in the afternoon turns to orange..then by the next morning turns red before it falls into the river to begin its journey of making a new tree. These bushes only bloom once a year, and coincidentally they were in bloom today. All f the colors were visible on the bush, and hundreds and hundreds of red blossoms floating in the river. So beautiful. When we got to fern grotto we took a walk into the rain forest… Similar foliage to what we saw on the rain forest walk in Maui on the road to hana..but never enough of the magnificent beauty of flowers I have never seen before and likely never will again. The grotto (cave) was amazing…with a waterfall coming down over it…..and ferns ..sword fern they said…growing right out of the rock and hanging down the rock wall of the cave…bananas and coconuts and giant ferns. Just amazing. The musicians played the Hawaiian wedding song..and told us that the grotto was a place where many people get married…when they finished playing and singing they told us all that we were now married Hawaiian style. We walked back to the boat, and the return trip up the river was the musicians playing and dancers doing hula and teaching us to hula as well. Very nice excursion…. Then we loaded back onto the bus and they took us to the waterfall from Fantasy Island…this time I know I saw Tattoo in the distance. All around the island there was lychee fruit for sale. I was curious about this lychee fruit, having never seen or tasted it. More about lychee fruit later.

The bus returned us to the pier, we went back aboard and had some lunch, then back off the ship to catch a shuttle to pick up our rental car. This was the place I was told I would find a waterfall to swim in. We had a plan, information from the ship waitstaff…and hope that my dream would be a reality. We picked up the car and headed to the ‘hawaiian shaved ice ‘ stand in the center of nawiliwili. We pulled over and I hopped out of the car to get the ‘map of the waterfalls’. The guy at the counter looked at me like I was insane. He didn’t have a map, but he told me he could tell me how to get to some hidden waterfalls. I raced back to the car for my map of the island and he told me how to get to two different falls. Off we went to the first falls….called Kiku falls…..we followed his directions and found bunches of cars parked at the edge of a sugar cane field. We parked too and headed down the path through the sugar cane. I felt a bit like children of the corn..the cane was over our heads…and lining our little path on both sides….we went a good long way through the cane field when suddenly the path opened up to the top of a fall…..lava rock everywhere….and a fall coming from the river down into a deep pool at the bottom. There were 50 people at least there….they had a rope swing and were swinging out over the falls and dropping down, and jumping off the cliff over the falls into the pool below. There was no way down into the pool but jumping. I am afraid of heights…my want and my fear had a nice battle and my fear won. I just couldn’t jump off a cliff!

Off we headed to the next location….we wound through the back roads of the island and eventually found ourselves at Wailua Falls….the overlook. These falls were about 80 feet high…gorgeous..with a wonderful pool below. There were some natives selling lychee fruit from their car, and I asked them how to get down to the pool at the bottom of the falls. They told me that the path had washed out, and they had fenced it off…that while I could probably get down…I wouldn’t be able to get back up. I sighed…..and got into the car disheartened. Suddenly two of the lychee sellers asked us for a ride down the mountain if we were going….We said sure..and drove them down….asking them where we would find a falls I wouldn’t have to jump off a cliff or climb down a cliff to get to the pool. He gave us directions to a fall around the island, that was just beside the road, but where you could just walk in. Coincidentally during the conversation we discovered that the girl we were driving had visited Columbus Georgia and loved it. Nice to talk to some locals…nice to be friendly. We dropped them off and headed around the island.

Such beautiful views…even if we didn’t find a waterfall at the end, the views were worth the trip. We drove for about an hour, through small villages, on cliffs beside the ocean, up over the mountains, down by the beach….. and reached a section of the island called the Na Pali coast. It was so beautiful…I took pictures but they cant do it justice. We didn’t, however see the waterfall…obviously we were distracted and didn’t follow directions….so we decided to find it on the return trip.

We did find the waterfall…it was lovely…could see it from the highway…but there were signs everywhere demanding that you not park…the place where it appeared there had been parking in the past, was cordoned off with no parking and caution tape….we went about a mile from the falls finding no where we would be allowed to pull over or park. I sighed..that was the last hope for me being in a waterfall. It just wasn’t going to happen. Oh well….. I had 4 things I wanted in Hawaii: See molten lava – done, go to a Luau – done, snorkel Molikini crater – done, and swim in a waterfall – not done. 3 out of 4 aint bad. I would still call this trip a success it was gloriously beautiful. I saw things of my dreams…and the lava viewing and the snorkeling more than made up for not swimming in a waterfall.

We returned the car and headed to the ship….ate some dinner…and spent the rest of the evening soaking in a hot tub.

Tomorrow morning we have reservations at the Bistro for the Jazz Brun ch…then I plan to sit on the deck and sunbathe the rest of the day. I have been in Hawaii for a week and I haven’t really gotten much sun! Too busy seeing the sights and Rich hates the beach so we haven’t done the ‘beach thing’ at all.

Kona

Latte, Lava, and Lobster

We got up had some breakfast ….a sidenote would be that the coffee on this ship is not good….it is some Italian brand that is incredibly bitter…but, not being a coffee connoisseur I drink it for its pick-me-up value every morning…

In Kona the bar is too shallow for the big cruise ship so we have to tender ashore on the lifeboats. I love being on the water so loved the tender ride to the pier. Once on the pier we had to catch a shuttle to the airport to pick up the rental car.

In Hawaii there have been so many excursions offered…but they are so expensive.. and most of them just take you to see beautiful scenery that you could drive to on your own with a map. The rental car only costs 40/day as opposed to the ..for example…road to hana excursion, which did nothing different than we did in the car, and cost $170/person! We have saved a lot of money this trip by avoiding most of the excursions the ship offered and adventuring ourselves. I felt more confident with that here than I would in the Caribbean, I mean..this is just a US State – no foreign laws I might not be aware of breaking.

Anywho…..we rented a car to explore Kona which is the leeward side of the big island of Hawaii. (Kona actually means leeward in Hawaiian) Where Hilo was wet and lush and green on the windward side…Kona was not…..it was the side of the island where lava from Mauna Loa had made its path to the sea many many many years ago, but the island still had not recovered. I looked around and wondered how Kona coffee could possibly grow in such a barren wasteland. Don’t get me wrong…there was still a beauty about the island …but it was a primitive beauty…rather than the beauty of things that are lush and alive with color.

Our first stop of the day was Mountain Thunder Coffee….as seen on the Discovery channel. (ok..not really lattte..but I was trying to theme my title) This coffee plantation was at an elevation of 3500 ft up Mount Hualalai. Anyway….driving up Hulalai has nothing on San Francisco….pffftt….those San Francisco hills are nothing….up up up we went through beautiful neighborhoods with homes tiered into the side of the mountain so that every single house had a few of the mountain above and the ocean below. We finally reached the plantation. We got out to the smell of roasting coffee beans….and cats. So many big fat friendly cats. I was immediately giddy, as I always am when I get to pat an animal. We headed to a set of picnic tables where there was a video showing about the coffee making process. It was at this time a young, semi handsome, kid in jean and a t-shirt approached to give the tour. First..he handed me a cup of premier kona coffee from the mountain thunder plantation. OMG…so good…like nothing I had ever called coffee before. There was nothing bitter about this coffee…it was smooth…drank it black and didn’t even want cream or sugar to counter the taste. It was absolutely delicious. It was at that moment I understood people who drink black coffee…..it is a matter of drinking good black coffee and not just Maxwell house. Coffee is a bit like fine wine…..you drink based on the type and quality of the bean, etc…etc…etc.. Learned a lot about coffee beans in the tour of the processing plant, which is really not much more than a Mom and Pop kind of shop. We finished the tour and then were offered a cup of their finest Hawaiian espresso. I admit , the espresso was good, but not nearly as smooth as the kona premier blend. I bought some coffee…kona premiere blend, and some chocolate covered coffee beans and chocolate covered macademia nuts.


We headed off to the Kona Brewery that had been suggested to us for lunch by a member of the cruise director’s staff. I am not much of a beer drinker, but Rich had a flight of Kona brews and he enjoyed all of them. I had diet coke with my salad and slide of pizza. It was a good lunch.

Then we were off to the lava fields. Miles and miles and miles and miles of black lava rock all the way to the sea. They had chiseled a road through the lava field to the ocean ..it was a state park. We wound our way through the curvy, rough road where there was nothing but black lava on either side of the road for about 40 minutes….then suddenly it opened up to the sea with palm trees and sand..it looked like an oasis. I admit the drive through the lava field fascinated me….the devastation it wraught, looking at the petrified trees in the lava….just filled me with the wonder of our planet and how it has been formed.

After our drive back out of the lava fields it was time to fill the rental with gas, and return it and return by tender to the ship.

Wednesday night on the Pride of America (the name of our ship) is lobster night. They take on Maine lobsters (home grown in kona…go figure) We had reservations for the Lazy J Steakhouse specialty restaurant on board. …every one of the restaurants had some kind of lobster. I got dressed in another of my new dresses and we went and had a before dinner drink in the bar on the top deck, then down to dinner. It was delicious..and the lobster amazing..the wine not so good. When we finished dinner it was about 10 PM and we were tired…we have not stopped to relax this whole trip..so much to see and do. So we went on to bed.

Tomorrow – Kaua’i.

Staying on the ship....

Today was relaxation. I slept late..had yummy breakfast that involved fresh tropical fruit – papaya, mango, pineapple, watermelon, grapes…and pancakes with surprisingly yummy sugar free syrup. Great way to start the day.

I was pooped from my vacation so today was a rest day. We were in Hilo on the big island of Hawaii, but tomorrow we are on the other side of the Big Island in Kona…so I didn’t feel like I was missing anything significant by staying on the boat today.

By 10:30 am I was laying on a chair by the pool on deck 13 forward. It is the ‘adult only’ pool next to the wakiki bar…..thus giving me my own pool boy to serve me drinks all day. I was alone at the pool most of the day..which is one of the reasons I always try to stay abord one day each cruise. I love the quiet and alone time in the midst of a very crowded floating world. I used lots of sunscreen…and ended up not burning but with a brown tan.

I also worked on my blog….hard to keep up on ship because there is no internet access in the cabin, and it costs .75/minute! I have taken to writing my blogs offline and pasting them in. So…I did my writing then logged on to upload pictures.

Dinner was so amazing last night. We ate at the French Bistro. I dressed up in my new silver dress. This dress is very low cut…I had to buy a special plunge bra to wear this dress. It is off the shoulder, and plunge in the center…with a fitted waist. It is my favorite dress and it drew lots of attention. Can we say cleavage! I am not used to being quite so audacious …..so I both enjoyed the attention, and it made me uneasy. I kept asking Rich “am I indecent” because the stares were so blatant. Anyway…we ate at the Bistro……I French onion soup, mussels in a cream leek broth, and rack of lamb with cherry tomatoes. It was delicious. Had a wonderful wine with dinner a Beaujoulais chardonnay. I didn’t finish the wine with dinner, so took the bottle with me up to the 13th deck for the lava viewing.

Mount Kilaeau is still erupting on the big island and the lava has mad a path to the sea. The lava has been flowing pretty steadily for about 20 years. The ship, while moving around the big island to kona passed the volcano …..and in the pitch black of the night….we had a perfect view of the lava flowing down the mountain to the sea. It was amazing…awe inspiring. I was moved to tears by the wonder of what I was seeing.

Went to the piano bar after that for a little while..then bed. Off to Kona tomorrow to explore Crater National Park and a coffee plantation. (what else would you do on kona, right?)

Snorkeling

Early morning today! Up at 5…..then quick coffee, juice, oatmeal and bacon before meeting up with the snorkeling group on the dock at 7. Today we snorkeled the Molikini Crater. The molikini crater is a volcanic crater that is underwater all but a crescent of the top….it has been underwater long enough to have become an amazing coral reef and is listed as one of the top 10 snorkel spots in the world.

Rich could care less about snorkeling, but humors the fact that I would spend my whole vacation snorkeling by taking me on one good snorkeling excursion on each trip. We hopped on the boat, finding a comfy spot on the top floor….where I could get sun on the trip out to the crater and back in. The ride out to the crater took about an hour and was pretty rough…lots of tossing and turning…. But the views of Maui from the water were spectacular.

We stopped, and they didn’t have to tell me twice to get in the water…I was in the first 20 off the boat (we had about 150 folks on the boat to snorkel with us) I had my underwater camera and a flip camera retrofitted with an underwater case to take video and I was SET. As always I was awed by the world ‘under the sea’. Fish and coral and anemone and urchin….so beautiful. A whole world just beneath the waves …and I always feel so grateful to be a spectator in that world for a time. We snorkeled for about an hour and a half, then we got back on the boat to head to a place where the green Hawaiian sea turtles like to hang out. When the boat stopped I was the third person off the boat….I wanted so badly to swim with a turtle..and figured my best bet was to get out to the reef before the crowd scared them off. I was not disappointed. The water was much murkier here than at the crater, harder to see….but I spotted a huge green sea turtle…and followed just above him for quite a while…I think I got a picture with my underwater camera, but it was murky and I didn’t get too close to him…didn’t want to scare him after all! I don’t know how long I was in the water following the turtle..but when I came to reality I was quite a ways from the boat and had been in the water for well over an hour… I headed back to the boat….harder in this direction swimming against the waves…..and I was shaking..needed food…blood sugar crash in progress…but I made it back to the boat.

Crew provided a nice lunch and I settled back to take a nice nap in the sun on the return trip to Maui.

Back on the boat treated myself to a trip to the spa for a pedicure…then back to the cabin to make a grand attempt to make myself beautiful for formal night. Dressed up…had a wonderful dinner…then I was just pooped …to bed early.

Tomorrow Hilo…and I might not even get off the ship. I want a nice quiet pool day!

The Road to Hana

Sunday morning came early…especially after all of that pub crawling the night before…….so after some coffee…and more coffee….we headed off for the day. Today we travelled the road to hana…..we left the terminal on a van to take us to the Maui airport to get our rental car. We got our little rental car…yes little…the road is so narraow in plcea with only one way bridges that I rented us the smallest car possible for this particular event.

The Road to Hana is one of the top ten road trips according to all things ‘trave;’…it is a 32 mile journey through the mountains in Maui to a small town called Hana. The road boasts stops for breathtaking vistas and waterfalls and nature hikes. The travel aficionados were right. I thought the drive to the Yukon in Alaska was the most spectacular drive of my life until this.

Rich was prepared for what he knew would be my compulsion to photograph every single beautiful view…and we planned for the 32 mile round trip to take 10 hours…so..no rush.

First stop was a surfer beach….coincidentally there was a cache there…so Rich set out to find the cache and I was taking pictures from the overview of the most amazing blue water I have ever seen. Seriously….caribbean blue is nothing on Hawaii blue. I loved watching the surfers and just stood there drinking in the beach. I have always been invigorated near the ocean…it is like somebody pumps me full of joy… and that was how I felt watching the surfers and the waves below me. After a while reality sunk in..and I looked for Rich who was still looking for his cache. I asked for a few pertinents about the cache…and walked a few steps from where he was and pointed “here it is”. So he logged it and he took some pics of me with the beautiful beach as a background and we headed down the road to the next stop on the Road to Hana guidebook.

Thus far the road had been flat…but we knew hairpin turns were in our future and did not have to wait long. I had mentally prepared myself for this drive…so I did not gasp and curse and tell Rich to slow down…and he politely went slow enough that I did not panic as we were driving around curves that looked like he was about to drive off the edge of a cliff.

Next stop was a small state park with a 1 mile looped walk up through the rainforest. It was so beautiful…the plants, the view through the trees of the ocean when I caught a peek Flowers I have never seen…ferns bigger than I am tall and round…. Trees so big I could sit in a small curve of the trunk. It was breathtakingly wonderful.

Next stop was what was promised to be a private waterfall…..a good length hike up a streambed leading to a hidden waterfall – right up my alley! Coincidentlly…there was also a cache at this location so it was a double good stop. Out of the car I bounded…excited for my swimming in a waterfall adventure. I hiked up the riverbed…over boulders…over 800 feet….up up up up up…I was sweating, I was tired, I was out of breath……and the waterfall was dry. I was disappointed L

I hiked back down the riverbed…cursing quietly and not so quietly….Rich took a picture of me way up the river….and I will post it as prrof of my futile climb. I got back into the car, disappointed, hot…….and shaking a bit…lunch time.

We headed off on our drive….to a peninsula surrounded by black lava rock. There was a small roadside stand selling fresh fruit, smoothies, hot dogs…..and we had lunch. I had a hot dog and a smoothie and what they called maui chips. It didn’t matter what it was at that point, I needed to eat. Felt better after lunch and Rich started looking for the geocache located, coincidentally…at the road side stand. While looking I started talking to some folks at the next table who were talking about the geocache…and then a geocachers spontaneous event happened with Rich and the cachers from Rhode Island. After some fun and fellowship and log book signing we all headed off. We stopped at the end of the peninsula and I got out of the car to take pictures…Rich got out to find another geocache…both of us accomplished our mission. Took video of the waves here….so beautiful the blue water with white crests from waves spraying up from black lava rock. The video nor the pictures will do this moment justice at all.

Off we headed…… three bears falls…mama, papa, baby…….only falls we saw all day that weren’t dry. The views were amazing on today’s trip..but the falls were not amazing..not enough water …water diverted because they have had a rain shortage. The falls were beautiful though…as were every moment of the spectacular drive. I don’t regret this trip at all…it was a visual feast. Last stop of the day was at the Black Sand Beach…..we walked with our toes in the black sand, walked in the lava tubes and it was wonderful.

Back we headed to Maui………. We needed to get back before dark, and now it was 5…the 32 mile drive was about 2 hours without stops because of the turns and one way bridges…so Rich was going to have to make haste to get back before dark. I took out my kindle to read..thinking that if my nose were in the book he could go faster without me being in a panic. You see…the return trip had my side of the car on the cliff side…..and I am a recovering height phobic. So…I read and he made haste…and I got carsick…he had to pull over three times…but there was no panic, just a little …well…nevermind.

Returned to the ship in time to have some dinner, then went to listen to a folk guitarist play in one of the lounges before bed. Early bed tonight..tomorrow morning we snorkel!