Woke up early to go to the airport. The sad day when vacation is over has finally arrived 🙁
We all travelled together to Honolulu were Robert spent his transition waiting time in downtown Honolulu while Chie and I spent most of it in the Delta lounge watching Football on TV and monitoring the Pittsburgh @ Oakland game on the Internet. Looked like a loss again (but once we were back home we found out it was a sensational come-back win :-D).
We went back to Kiahuna today, our last day in Kauai. Yesterday we had arranged for Robert to take a surfing lesson in the afternoon. The morning we spent as usual by playing in the water (waves were big today too), reading, sleeping and eating.
At 2 pm Robert joined the surfing lesson. First they spent some time on the beach learning how to get up on the board. After a while they were ready for the ocean. Robert did well and managed to ride the board on his first attempt, maybe not the most beautiful pose but… 😉
While Robert was surfing Chie and I continued to relax and to play in the water. Note the dog surfing behind Chie, I wonder if the dog has been to a surf school?
Once Robert was finished with his surf lesson we all went to the Lava’s bar next to the beach to celebrate Robert’s kickoff as a surfer. But Robert was too tired to stay so he returned to the beach, ate all my protein bars, and slept until Chie and I were back from our celebration.
At around 5:30 pm we decided it was time to return home. We stopped by a gas station to fill up the car and then a short stop at the Poipu Shopping Village for some final purchases before we returned home. Again we were just in time for a stunning sunset.
We decided to take another relaxing day at the beach, more specifically at the Kiahuna beach. The waves were quite big due to a swell from the south. It just made it more fun to play in the water 🙂
Between playing in the water and sleeping we also had time for some reading – just a little bit 😉
We returned home via a stop at the grocery store in Koloa at around 5:30 pm. And we got home just in time to watch (from our balcony) the sun set over Poipu.
We were quite tired after the boat trip yesterday so we took it easy at Poipu beach the whole day. We did not even take any pictures.
In the evening we had regained a bit of our energy. At least enough to take a picture of the sunset.
At 10 am we were sitting in a small rubber boat of the type that Navy Seals use. We were joined by 8 other and two crew members – Captain Danny and Austin (family original from Sweden – now in Minnesota).
Captain Danny run the boat hard jumping on the waves. Though it was a bit difficult to hold on in the beginning it was great fun, and after a while you got used to it and it was just great fun.
The weather was great and we could cover the whole Na Pali (west) coast all the way up to Ke’e beach. Going into some caves on the way up – and later on again on the way down. We also stopped at some spots to take photos of the beautiful coast line.
Around noon we stopped at an 800 year old fishing village, or rather the remains of it. We did some snorkeling, had lunch and a guided tour of the remains of the fishing village. There were a few important things to remember from the guided tour.
First, the village was covered by the largest Noni tree colony in Hawaii. And Noni is super fruit that can be used for many things including curing some cancer.
Second, the goddess of fire that created the islands of Hawaii marks them with an X when she is finished with an island. All islands except Big Island, which still have active volcanos and is still growing, have a big X on a west phasing mountain side.
Third, sea turtles stink 🙂 We had 11 turtles on the beach that we could watch (and smell) from a close distance.
On our way back to the harbor in Waimea it started to rain. It cooled things down but it never got really cold. And though we were wet and tired once we reached the harbor we were all very happy – it had been a great trip along a beautiful coast.
It was still raining when we got into the car so we decided to spend the last 2 hours before returning home with some shopping in Lihue. Robert and I visited a Vitamin store where there was a Swedish woman working. So Robert discussed all his purchases in Swedish – kind of strange 🙂