SWIMMING WITH SEA TURTLES

The first time I ever saw the beautiful set of Elvis Presley’s 1964 Blue Hawaii I was only 10 and had no idea the movie was filmed on Kauai. My Mom, an avid Elvis Presley fan, took my sister Jenny and me to every Presley movie that was shown at a local drive-in movie theater called the 40-Hi Drive-in.  I watched Elvis swivel his hips to vaguely Hawaiian rhythms (and probably swiveled my tiny hips along with Elvis) but had no cultural context in which to appreciate the amazing beauty of the scenery and the remarkable abilities of the surfers and hula dancers filling in the ‘local color’ for the movie.

I finally got to visit beautiful Kauai in person last week. Little did I know that by the end of my visit not only would I have waxed nostalgic over those late-night Elvis movies with my Mom and sister Jenny but I would have shared a swim with ‘Honu’ (Hawaiian Sea Turtles).

Kauai is called The Garden Island for good reason. Kauai’s beautiful beaches and stunningly green craggy mountains have attracted many famous movies since White Heat in 1934. But as beautiful as movie-set Kauai is, it has a very residential, almost rural, feel with lovely resorts, like The Point at Po’ipu and the Grand Hyatt next door, interspersed among residential neighborhoods of all types. To get to the resorts, most of which are on or near a beach, it is not uncommon to drive past pastures and orchards, horses and cows. You wind up at your resort destination already prepared to relax and enjoy the slower pace of this lovely island.

Po’ipu, where we stayed, is an area with several beaches, including Shipwreck (just to the east of Point and right behind the Grand Hyatt) which is aptly named for its big waves and rocky reefs. Po’ipu Beach, just 5 minutes away, is a neighborhood beach where high school surfers practice on the bigger waves at the west end of the beach while paddle boarders, well beyond the breaks, make it seem really easy to stand on a board just a little bit bigger than a surfboard, paddling through the genesis of waves that send small children tumbling to the shore. In the safe waters protected by the outer reef, families play while snorkelers like my sister Becky and I enjoy the many species of tropical fish that inhabit the area (see my blog post The Chubs in Paradise). Po’ipu is also a favorite beach for the endangered monk seal which shares the warm white sands with the families, surfers and snorkelers.

Po’ipu has the equivalent of a neighborhood bar with the  bartenders at Brennecke’s Beach Front Restaurant pulling a regular’s drink choice before the person has pulled up a bar stool, as locals converse about how improved some of the high school surfers have become and how long the migrating monk seals napped on the beach. Brennecke’s, on the second floor across from the beach’s lifeguard station and restrooms, is the kind of place locals rub elbows with the guests, dispensing advice on everything from where to sun, snorkel and surf to which local beer is the best.

I admit, places like Brennecke’s can be found all over the island; Brennecke’s was just the fun, welcoming bar in OUR neighborhood. Driving up the east coast to the end of Highway 50 to the trailhead of Kauai’s famous Na’Pali Trail, we stopped at the popular and crowded Kalypso’s for a delayed breakfast. Here, too, the locals, an interesting mix of flaxen-haired surfers, families, grizzled islanders and businessmen and women stopping by for breakfast, were friendly and generous with their advice.

The little village of Hanalei is the last one along Highway 50 as it rather abruptly ends a few miles later at Haena State Park. There, Becky and I toured the ‘wet and dry caves’ and I had a chance to talk to one scruffy local who has walked the 22-mile round trip Napali Coast Kalalua Trail - twice. He confirmed the beauty and the treachery of the trail which follows is a thin shelf cut above the beautiful but dangerous rocks and cliffs of Kauai’s Napali Coast. I had seen a couple (well really kind of a bunch for one trail) of warning signs at the beginning of the trail, vowing if I could, I would be bringing my fellow adventurers here in the next year or so to experience this once in a lifetime trail. 

Backpacker Magazine ranks the Kalalau Trail as one of the ‘world’s most paradisical (sic) beaches’, despite it also being ranked one of America’s 10 most treacherous. The trail ends in the gorgeous Kalalau Valley and Beach which can only be visited by boat or on foot along this particular trail. Beautiful, remote and treacherous – sounds like it might be a place that offers astounding beauty and solitude. Just my kind of trail.

The next day we first toured and snorkeled the Napali Coastline from water on one of Captain Andy’s beautiful catamaran sail boats. Captain Rick was full of information about the early settlers (Hawaiian) to the Napali Coast valleys and pulled the catamaran close to the cliff walls so we could enjoy the many waterfalls falling from the cliffs. The winds were too tricky that day to sail but our boat’s engines carried us up to the last waterfall on the west side of the island well past Kalalau Valley carved out by rain drainage of millennia. As the boat moved north from Kalalau Valley, I could track the thin horizontal line of the Napali Coast Kalalua Trail above.

On our way back, although Captain Rick noted that the ‘little swim’ we would be offered would be in waters too murky for really good snorkeling, we were encouraged to gear up and enjoy what we could. My sister Becky was one of the first to notice a sea turtle which kept dipping down to hide in the coral below us. A small group of us, further away from the boat and closer to the ever-present danger of the reefs nearer the cliffs, tracked that turtle and a larger one until one of the Captain’s sailors paddled his surfboard over to tell us we were too close to the reef for safety. Exhilarating.

After the snorkel, the catamaran flew swiftly back the direction of Port Allen. As we rounded the southwest corner of the coast we encountered a headwind and ‘reverse waves’ which have the effect of slamming the waves together so quickly that the front of the boat is just recovering from one wave before it gets hit with the next. This can have the effect of causing serious seasickness but if you have the courage to sit on the front of the boat, hanging tightly to whatever chrome safety bar is available or lie on the ‘trampolines’ which cover the area between the hulls and the main platform of the boat, you will escape sea sickness AND have the ride of your life.

Anyone lying prone on the ‘tramps’, holding tightly to the ropes holding the tramps up, WILL get wet. A group of giggly little girls, having commandeered one tramp, screamed with scary pleasure each time the wave came up from underneath and through the tramp, lifting their small bodies, still prone, up and off the tramp. Their infectious fun spread like a virus to us adults. I swear it was better than DisneyWorld’s Splash Mountain. Oh the other hand, the less adventurous on the boat gathered in a miserable seasick clump in the most stable part of the cabin, wishing the ride was over.

Safely back ashore, Becky and I headed to the end of the paved road on the west side of the island, past the very beautiful red rock and greenery of Waimea Canyon, called the ‘Grand Canyon’ of Kauai.  We stopped in verdant and tidy Koke’e State Park to find out about cabin rentals and trail descriptions in its tiny museum and visitor center. Now pay attention to this. The paved road ends beyond Koke’e above Kalalau Valley (remember the trail?) but by the time we got there we were literally in cloud. Had we been able to see the valley, we would have been looking down one of the same valleys we had seen from the boat.

After almost every trip I wind up asking myself ‘Would I go again?’ Most of the time, I admit that if I have a choice of somewhere I’ve never been before rather than a place I’ve already been, I opt for the potential of the unknown. But Kauai is justifiably proud of its beautiful interior and coastline. And although Kauai is one of the smaller islands of the Hawaiian archipelago, only 33 miles across, I feel like I have barely experienced the beautiful genuinely sweet island of Kauai. I am already planning my next trip.

CHUBS IN PARADISE

I made my acquaintance with a most unusually colored fish today. It looked like a cartoon fish colored by a kindergartner with a box of 500 crayon colors. The fish is as brightly adorned as one of those jungle parrots which is probably why it’s called a parrotfish – but since it’s a Hawaiian parrotfish its way more complicated but colorful name is Uhu Bullethead Parrotfish.

The parrotfish, which I named Matey, was one of many circling my sister and me as we snorkeled off Poi’pu Beach in Kaua’i. We were cheating just a bit. The young Hawaiian cashier sold us a tube of fish food (the tube itself biodegradable and edible for the fish) to dribble out around us to attract the colorful reef fish as we snorkeled. Good idea, right?

Yeah. Matey and his buddies were hard to woo any closer than the near ocean floor while a group of more burly fish, called Enenue Lowfin Chub, muscled right up to the bag to nibble on either it or our fingers depending on which was easiest. The chubs circled us like hungry sharks, almost touching our bodies with their lightly striped yellow and gray bodies. Nudging us, pushing us. Kind of disconcerting. You’d think since they didn’t mind pushing us around a bit, they wouldn’t mind if I reached out to touch them. But no, I’m pretty sure they do not grasp the idea of reciprocity.

All this togetherness was going on at the same time the swell was pushing us back and forth in the water. I don’t snorkel that often and it always takes me a bit of time to relax and trust my diving mask and snorkel. Living with asthma adds a layer of discomfort at the idea of breathing through a skinny tube that could be swamped by salt water while swimming above an ocean floor which is too deep for me to stand to recover myself.

However, when one is in Kaua’i, trust me, you really should snorkel off one of the beaches. Renting a snorkeling package means you get the mask, the snorkel and the fins (if you want them the fins really help when you are swimming against the wave action). Surf and snorkel shops are ubiquitous; every beach will have one or more nearby.

The fish food is optional – you might see lots of brightly colored fish anyway but the fish food is like crack to the reef fish. In just seconds you can be surrounded by a crowd of brightly colored reef creatures that include Matey and Chubby’s chums as well as Manini Convict Tangs wearing their black prison stripes over their yellow bodies, the Nunu Pekes (Coronetfish) looking as anorexic as haute couture models, the tiny Pennant Butterflyfish with its long spikey dorsal fin emerging from its back. These colorful creatures are just the showiest of the native species. Many other perhaps less colorful but no less interesting fish also circle with their show-off buddies.

Once we were tired of defending our honor among the gluttonous chub, we swam back toward the beach over the submerged rock to find not one but two endangered Hawaiian monk seals taking a break on Poi’pu Beach. Monk seals are treasured in the Islands and lifeguards are equipped with yellow caution tape to encourage us humans to leave them alone while they nap right next to sun-screened sunbathers before returning to the water.

All in all, quite an adventurous two hours on a Hawaiian beach. I’m glad we had a chance to practice snorkeling; we are headed for the world-famous Na Pali Coast on Sunday. Here we will snorkel over living coral reefs from a comfortable catamaran.  Kaua’I is called Hawaii’s Garden Island which is obvious even before your airplane touches down at Kauai’s Lihue airport. Between the colorful fish and the tunnel of trees we drove through to get to our resort, we truly feel like we are in a Garden as beautiful as Eden. And the most snake-like thing we’ve seen so far are tiny spiney lizards doing pushups on the sidwalks before disappearing into the bushes at our resort.

ALOHA!