DivingFour days of great diving with Fathom Five. Three morning shore dives in the north at Tunnels and one solo shore dive in the south at Koloa Landing. 42 images |
 1 Arrived at Hanalei Bay Resort Saturday evening, woke up Sunday morning to be greeted by perfect weather. Nice! |
 2 Great day for an outdoor Mother's Day brunch at Nanea, the restaurant at the Westin in Princeville. Travelling with our friends Billy and Becky Laughlin. |
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 5 View of Anini Beach from the Westin's overlooking bluff |
 6 The Westin at Princeville Kauai |
 7 Sunday afternoon, we headed south to do some shopping and stopped at this supposed farmer's market in Anahola. There are zero official farmer's markets open on Sundays, so we wanted to check this out. |
 8 Really nothing more than a family farm's meager vegetable stand, but they have "da bes" grilled wild boar that "Reggie" hunts himself. Needless to say, a few plates were bought and served as snackage for a couple of days. |
 9 Monday evening the resort had a blessing by Lady Ipo over the reopening of the pool after a series of extensive renovations. |
 10 Becky and Max had taken hula lessons from Lady Ipo back in 2005, so it was a chance to reconnect with her. She is now a minister with her own congregation. |
 11 People gather on the Hanalei Beach as the sun goes down. Some color, but too cloudy for a good sunset. Amazing nonetheless as people wordlessly stream onto the beach as the appointed hour grows near. |
 12 As the sun sets, this guy serenades the beach with his battery powered organ. Have no idea what the galoshes were about... maybe he knew of a tsunami warning that everyone else missed? |
 13 Billy and Max watch the sunset over Hanalei beach |
 14 Tuesday afternoon we hit the large and popular Hanale farmer's market. Billy and Becky enjoying themselves. |
 15 Tuesday night we headed to the Mediterranean Gourmet for their "family-style" luau. What a treat, it was truly old-style traditional with Coppin Colburn and his family members performing. |
 16 The band played as we ate dinner and they were great! Phenomenal harmony singing, ukulele playing, and Coppin Colburn in the center on guitar. |
 17 Maxine enjoys her complimentary mai-tai! |
 18 Coppin blows the conch horn to signal the start of the hula performances. The drumming was done by his wife and the hula by his daughters. Great stuff, true feeling of ohana (family) and aloha spirit! |
 19 Not only does Coppin sing and play guitar, but he also does a Maori fire knife dance. To top it off, we later found out that he is the head of security at the St. Regis! |
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 21 A video of some of the Mediterranean Gourmet Luau performances. The first hula is by a relative of the Colburns who is originally from Chicago. The second segment is three of Coppin's daughters dancing hula while his wife drums in the background. |
 22 This is Stan. Stan is 80 years old and in better shape than the four of us combined. Stan leads water aerobics every morning at the resort pool, one class which Becky took. In addition, Stan leads hikes. We know this because we went on one with him at the whopping cost of $6 per person per hour. |
 23 This is Stan's activity list. Note that he is "AN EXPERIENCED HIKER". Also note how it will be the highlight of your visit. He reminds us of this often. It's the highlight alright, but mainly because Stan has given us enough entertainment value to last into the next lifetime. |
 24 The hike we take with Stan is to the old abandoned Hanalei Plantation Resort/Club Med property that has sat undeveloped since the early 70's. We start by walking down to the beach we share with the St. Regis. |
 25 We stumble along the rocky shore, crossing streams, and tripping on roots of trees that Stan cannot identify. Meanwhile, Stan runs backwards in front of us, clapping his hands like a drill sergeant for us to keep up. This is a view of the historic Hanalei pier as we stumble among the shoreline brush to find the path up the bluff to the old resort area. |
 26 After climbing through Stan's "magic bamboo forest" (really just a small patch of bamboo in the middle of the jungle) and climbing the "secret green stairs" (really just a bunch of old treacherous rotted steps) we arrive at a plateau. We had heard about this prime piece of land overlooking Hanalei for years but never knew how to access it before. You can see the overgrown foundations of the resort buildings which were left to nature 40-50 years ago. |
 27 Another view of the abandoned ruins of the old Club Med resort which closed decades ago. |
 28 The old resort is on a bluff with spectacular panoramic views of Hanalei Bay and Bali Hai. It is simply amazing that it has sat undeveloped for so long. |
 29 Panoramic view of Hanalei Bay from the old resort, amazing! |
 30 The exhausted hikers enjoying our moment of rest before we descend back to the beach... at which point Stan informs us that we are now "really going to hate him" because he shows us a path down that is 5x easier than the ridiculous excursion he took us on to climb up! Yes, we do hate Stan at the end of this expedition. |
 31 Enough with the physical exertion, Thursday afternoon we beached it at the far western end of Anini. |
 32 View from Anini across the stream towards Wyllie Beach |
 33 Lots of shade and most of the beach to ourselves |
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 35 After the beach on Thursday afternoon, Becky and Max took a hula kahiko (traditional hula done to percussion) lesson at a local community center. The lessons are given weekly by a well known hula halau (school) from Hanalei. |
 36 Drop-ins are welcome and there was only one other person besides Max and Becky. After an hour and a half, the girls were doing pretty well! |
 37 The chant they are dancing to was written by Frank Kawai Hewett, who is a renowned kumu hula and has been a member of the group Olomana for decades. The lyrics speak to the beauty of Ha'ena which is the area beyond Hanalei to the west. |
 38 Max and Becky start out learning the steps to a hula chant one by one. By the end of the lesson, they are up to speed and doing quite well! |
 39 Thursday evening we met up with Jenny McAteer at Sushi Bushido in Kapaa. Jenny is an esthetician at the St. Regis that we met a couple of years ago. |
 40 Mmmm!!! Sushi and amore! Bill and Becky at Sushi Bushido. |
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 43 Friday night dinner was going to be pupus, drinks, and sunset. So, first stop was Pono Market in Kapa'a for "da bes" poke. |
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 45 Rob is the grandson of the original founders of Pono Market which started as an outlet for his family's pig farm. |
 46 The pupus and drinks are working, because we had the best sunset of the trip on Friday night |
 47 Deb and Mary came over from Oahu on Saturday morning. That afternoon we embarked on a "Holy Heiau" tour along the Wailua river. Hikinaakala is in Lydgate Park at the mouth of the river. |
 48 The remains of the Hikinaakala heiau |
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 50 Just a short ways up the Wailua River is the Holoholoku heiau which is.... |
 51 .... adjacent to the royal birthing stones. All women of royalty gave birth here. The umbilical cord of the newborn was sacrificed to determine the young royal's character. |
 52 On a small knoll above the birthing stones is this old Japanese cemetary |
 53 Farther up on a bluff overlooking the Wailua River is the Poli'ahu heiau |
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 56 Deb and Mary at the Poliahu overlook |
 57 Max 'splains the heiau to Becky |
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 59 Across the road from the Poli'ahu heiau is Opaeka'a Falls |
 60 Continuing up Kuamo'o Rd is Keahua Arboretum. The road crosses a stream and then turns to dirt. Locals use the area for picnics. |
 61 Rainbow Eucalyptus trees |
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 63 View from the arboretum |
 64 During the past year, the old Guava Kai plantation was bought by a wealthy dot-com millionaire and turned into a sustainable farm, cafe, and event center. We went for Sunday brunch to check it out. |
 65 The ambiance at the Common Ground is definitely "granola-y". Atmospheric ukulele, bongos, and guitar served as background music while we ate. However, the food is excellent, fresh from their gardens or sourced locally from other farms on the island. |
 66 Common Ground is only open for breakfast and lunch. They do private events in the evenings and are planning to open a market by June 2012. |
 67 These hi-tech yurts seem to be the living quarters for the interns and some of the staff that live on property. |
 68 After brunch, we toured through the gardens at Common Ground. Fig growing on a fig tree (where else would it grow!) |
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 70 The gardens are unbelievably maintained. Despite the laid-back persona of the staff, this place is operated immaculately and methodically. |
 71 One of the vegetable gardens. The curved rows and arrangement of the plantings were all done for specific reasons. |
 72 The dead and abandoned guava tree orchards serve as shade for the farm's goat population. |
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 75 Sunday evening we got some nice color in the sky, even if it was too cloudy on the horizon for a good sunset. |
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 77 Monday night we went out for a great tapas dinner at Bar Acuda in Hanalei |
 78 By Tuesday, Bill was feeling not-so-well, so Becky, Max, and I went for a self-guided tour through Limahuli Gardens. |
 79 Limahuli is one of the country's very few National Botanical Gardens |
 80 Leading up from the visitor center are ancient terraced taro fields. The rock walls are 700 years old built by the ancient Hawaiians that settled in the valley. |
 81 The taro ponds are irrigated by streams descending from the upper valley through a series of cleverly designed diversion ditches. |
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 83 Mt. Makana (Bali Hai) forms the western wall of the Limahuli valley |
 84 Hibiscus |
 85 Bird of paradise |
 86 Farther into the valley are the many streams that descend and irrigate the taro ponds |
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 88 Max narrates from the guidebook as we reach a small rest stop with benches |
 89 View out from the valley, north towards the ocean, with Mt. Makana on the left. |
 90 View back into the deeper part of the valley |
 91 Happy because we made it this far with no falls, stumbles, or broken ankles |
 92 Limahuli valley |
 93 Max narrates the next point of interest |
 94 We start descending back to our starting point. This gives you feel of the visitor center and the taro fields that ascend up from it. |
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 96 Our farewell view, deep into the back of Limahuli |
 97 After Limahuli, we stopped briefly at the Waikanaloa Wet Cave which is right by the side of the road. The cave was created during an earlier epoch when the sea level reached this area. |
 98 Looking up from the entrance to the wet cave are all the vines that descend from the summit above us. |
 99 Four days later, close to the end of our trip, Billy was still down for the count and it was clear that he had the flu. So, keeping with our new vacation tradition we sought out the nearest walkin clinic in Kilauea. |
 100 Billy not feeling well.... awwww...... |
 101 Yes, the clinic provides little face masks for those that are sick. But hey, they make good party hats also! |
 102 On our way home through Honolulu airport, we found these tasty treats in one of the gift stores. Mmmmm... Flaky Donkey Balls! |
 103 Oh wait, there's more.... Dirty Donky Balls! |
 104 Made on the Big Island, there are even Creamin Screamin Orange Cream Donkey Balls... what to choose?? |
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