Kauai Day 6

We woke up at 6, packed everything we needed in the car, and headed to the north shore. It was cloudy but we assumed it was just early morning weather and would clear up. By Princeville it was raining pretty solidly and it didn't look promising. We knew the trail would be incredibly wet and muddy in the rain and the views would be obscured so we gave up. This lookout two days before had been one of our favorite views, but this morning there was nothing to see:

I was really disappointed and a little frustrated because it was supposed to be rainy the next day too so I was worried we weren't going to have a chance to hike the trail at all. We decided we'd give it a shot the next day rain or shine.

We'd been considering a helicopter tour the whole trip and to make up for our disappointment we called a company right then and booked seats for the afternoon.

We had a few hours before we needed to be at the air field so we drove south to Poipu. Everyone always says if it's raining on one side of the island, it will be sunny on the other; and sure enough it was blue skies. The clouds started clearing as we drove south and we saw some beautiful rainbows:

We went to the Sheraton beach again so Dan could try one last time to find the caverns. This time he was almost certain he knew where they were and there was also a boat anchored right above them so he had something to swim towards.

He set off from the shore and swam all the way to the boat. The snorkeling guide from the boat was a freediver and when she saw Dan swim up she said, "Where did you come from?". Dan watched as she swam through the caverns to make sure he felt comfortable. First he dove down to the entrance (42 feet) to see how he felt. Then he dove down again and swam through the 15-foot long tunnel out to the other side and then back up to the surface. I was glad there were other people there while he was doing this, and next time he definitely needs to have a diving buddy so he can explore more.

I had been reading on the chairs this whole time and was happy to see Dan come back alive. We chilled on the beach for a while. Dan in his post-diving state:

We had lunch at Savage Shrimp in Poipu (delicious) and then drove to Lihue to check in at Island Helicopters. There are several companies that do helicopter tours but we chose this one only because they had the cheapest price and best deal I could find. They are also the only company that is allowed to land at Manawaiopuna Falls (better known as the Jurassic Falls, if you've ever seen Jurassic Park you know what they look like) and let people walk around, but we definitely did not pay the extra money to do that.

We had 20 minutes to wait so the lady at the desk recommended we drive the mile or so to the ocean at the end of the road. We walked along the dock and the deep water was so clear we could see all the reef fish and a few big puffer fish. We then headed back to the landing pad, got a short safety debrief, then in to the helicopter with the blades spinning!

I like this picture of our helicopter with the another one taking off right behind:

 Me with my flotation device...just in case. I was never worried about the safety of the ride, but I was really worried I was going to get motion sick.

 Our pilot (who, when he found out we were from Utah, asked us if we knew where "Point Of The Mountain" was because he had been hang gliding there) -

I was really excited...

They really packed people in these helicopters, and probably more so with our cheap flight. There were 6 passengers and it was a little cramped!

Not-so-attractive selfie:

Neither of us cared for the music in the headphones so we both had one ear on so we could still hear our pilot and one ear off so we could hear the noise of the helicopter (which I actually quite liked).

The overwhelmingly greenness of this island really is unreal:

Before we even booked a helicopter tour, we had been joking that the tours would play the Jurassic Park theme song when they flew over the falls. It turns out they actually do play the song and we were both laughing. But this waterfall was so impressive and beautiful.

The pilot took us right up to it and hovered in front of it for a while. It was one of my favorite parts of the tour, not just for the sights but for the feel of the helicopter maneuvering around. I ended up feeling fine during the flight because it was so smooth and actually wished we would have done more of the unique flying that helicopters can do.

We flew over Waimea Canyon and were in awe at the colors and the waterfalls:

 Our pictures of the Napali Coast look edited, but it really is that amazing.

 We flew into some of the canyons and rotated 360 degrees while hovering so everyone could get a good view.

The north side of the island is a different green than the other parts of the island:

Dan took these pictures to show his brothers where he went diving. This was the reef at Tunnels Beach and it was interesting to see it from above.

Our very favorite part of the tour is when we flew into the extinct volcano crater of Mount Waialeale, one of the wettest places on earth. The crater was blown out on the side (millions of years ago) and looked more like an enclosed valley. We didn't take pictures because we were both in such awe. It was incredibly green and beautiful with waterfalls everywhere. Here's one from a website but it still doesn't capture what it was like to be in the crater:

We headed back to Lihue after 45 minutes and it felt like it had only been 10, yet we were both totally exhausted from trying to take in all we saw!

 I'm so glad we ended up doing it.

Even though I had felt fine during the ride my stomach was feeling pretty churned up after, so we decided to take it easy and just sit on a beach somewhere. We drove to Poipu state park and it was packed and not very clean-feeling, and Dan had horrible shave ice, so we stayed for 10 minutes and got back in the car.

We decided to take the dirt road to the Maha'ulepu Beach area where we had hiked to near the beginning of our trip. The road was really bad and had huge potholes. It made me so nervous to watch the road but I was already a little nauseous so I had to look out the window. I was just glad Dan was driving and not me.  We found ourselves another practically deserted beach and Dan ended up free diving for an hour. He saw tons of fish and even a sports fish he could have shot with his speargun (he wanted to make a note of that for next time).

I really liked our arrangement of Dan diving and me reading:

While heading back to Poipu I tried to get reservations at either Tidepools or Keoki's Paradise for a nice sit-down dinner but both were full. I realized later we probably could have just walked in and been seated without a reservation but oh well. We ended up going to Duke's barefoot bar (after a quick stop at Kauai Nut Roasters for gifts and snacks for ourselves, so delicious) and had our only sit-down meal of the trip.  Our table-side ambiance:

The food was cheaper than I expected and very good, but it definitely had the vibe of a chain restaurant. The Hula pie was huge and pretty good. I'm glad we went but I really loved all the hole-in-the-wall places we ate at for most of the trip.

We went back to our little house to once again pack up for our hike the next day.