snorkel – The PolyBlog

Honeymoon recap 14 – Napali Coast, Hiking and Lihue

February 24 2024

Day 14 was our last day, which, for most vacationers, means a sad day. But not for us. We had saved a visit to the Napali Coast, aka the West Coast of the island, on a zodiac. I mentioned previously that the fourth side of the island was uninhabited, unspoiled. If you’ve seen any movie set on an island that is supposed to be lush and green and wild, it was likely set in the opening scenes by a visit towards the Napali Coast. Isla Nublar from Jurassic Park used the Napoli Coast for many of its scenes. As did many “monster” films like King Kong. Why? Well, look for yourself.

Here’s what it looks like when you’re in a Zodiac on a bright sunny day.

And a scene from a helicopter.

For OUR establishing shot, here we are on the Zodiac.

As you go along the coast, there are lots of views like the first one above. But if you go in closer, you see that there are some caves or overhangs where you can go “inside”. There are scenes from James Bond movies shot inside these caves, and they are pretty cool to see in person.

And then you come out, back into the sunshine, and forget what you’re seeing because your brain doesn’t want to comprehend the scale.

Way down at the left side of the picture below is the trail we were hiking. See how low it is compared to the REAL mountains closer to the middle? Mind-boggling.

There’s a small beach area which might look familiar from the Jurassic World movies, even if none of the compies are attacking little girls. But we did get to stop and go swimming/snorkelling off the zodiac. I would have preferred a shallower entry rather than just over you go, but snorkelers can’t be choosers! 🙂

While we were snorkelling, I was expecting to see lots of fish. Instead, I mainly followed a turtle around.

We only had a few hours for the tour, and that was probably a good thing. While we got to see wonderful things like the waterfall below and some dolphins around the Zodiac as we were driving around, we were a bit unprepared for sun care. We did have water proof sunblock, strong stuff, all good, right? We put it on as soon as we got on the boat. Every ounce of skin was covered, and we had hats, all good. Except we were wearing our shorts over our bathing suits. When we went swimming and then got back on the boat, we just stayed in our bathing gear. So the few inches between the hem of our shorts and the hem of our bathing suits were left exposed. Without sunblock. We both got sunburnt, with Andrea’s legs screaming for Aloe Vera later in the day. Still worth it. In the main gallery, I added a bunch of scanned postcards of the coast from our trip.

Now that alone would be enough for our last day on the island. Amazing, mind-blowing, incredible. Yet, every day that we were near the Canyon, we felt we had to go visit. We couldn’t resist, it just drew us up the road into the area…we wanted to go hiking again.

We got a little closer to the waterfalls and pond today.

And then it was time to return to Lihue and start packing to leave the next day.

It had been an amazing honeymoon, trip and vacation. We had seen incredible sites; knocked numerous “adventures” off my bucket list for submarines, volcanoes, helicopters, sea turtles, hiking up mountains; and enjoyed sunsets, food and each other’s company without the stress of planning for a wedding. It felt perfect.

We didn’t know yet that there was another surprise waiting for us. What started as a trip for 2 was ending as a trip for 3. Jacob was with us too, even if we hadn’t met or named him yet.

Honeymoon recap 08 – Kona, Place of Refuge and boat cruise

February 3 2024

Day 8 in Hawaii started with a nice breakfast in “downtown” Kona. You can see the view from our simple hotel room, with distant cruise ships (I seem to recall they were leaving that day, not arriving), the pier going off to the left which is where we caught the lift to the submarine, a small lagoon sort of on the right halfway up which was for the hotel where the luau was, and then the back of the white and blue building to the left which is where we had breakfast, looking out over the ocean. If I recall correctly, somewhere slightly to the left is where the swimming portion starts for the Hawaii Ironman.

After breakfast, we headed South again, back towards where we went kayaking and snorkelling. There’s a site called the “Place of Refuge”, which has historical roots to people seeking political refuge there with a religious order taking care of them. However, while that in and of itself is noteworthy, I really just wanted to see the turtles.

Yes, turtles. When we were in Hilo, there were some sea turtles that swam around the bay by the hotel, which we had spotted while walking around. It seemed a bit surreal to me that these giant turtles just swam by. At the Place of Refuge, there are a lot of turtles nesting and mating in the area, so you can see them along the shore.

I know lots of people who have gone on African safaris, but I get excited just watching sea turtles. 🙂

For dinner, we drove a bit north to a small marina, and boarded a catamaran for a sunset dinner cruise. There were about 4-5 couples, I think, nothing big. And we chatted with the owners about the business. Like many in the Islands, they had originally gone to Hawaii on vacation, loved it, and eventually moved there. But, of course, they needed income, and so they decided to offer cruises. I found it a complete mystery to me, an area that I had never thought much about before, just assumed most people working in this area would “start fresh”. But just as the guy running the lava tube tour had “bought” the business, so too had this couple bought the boat and business together. Someone else started it and had it up and running, with a predictable cash flow, etc., and like any business, it could be sold to someone as a turnkey system. Which these people had done. I don’t know if they knew much about running a business like this, knew anything about boats, marine safety, weather conditions, etc.

But we had signed up for that day, so it obviously worked!

I don’t remember what we had for dinner, I remember some drinks and a bag of chips for snacks. I remember one of the other couples laying on a hammock strung across between the two runners of the catamaran. I have a vague recollection of the shape of the cabin, storage, a little kitchenette next to the helm.

But the big draw was the sunset on the water.

Part of me wishes we had a way better camera for that sunset. I think it was the first night I felt fully relaxed after the busy year up until and including the wedding. We had nowhere to be; nothing else we had to be doing. We were just chilling on a boat, sipping and noshing.

Honeymoon recap 07 – Snorkelling and luau

February 3 2024

Day 7 in Hawaii and up to this point, we had barely done stuff in the ocean yet. Sure, we went to the hot springs near Hilo on the first day, and were around the Ocean a lot (or under, if you count the submarine), but we hadn’t really swam properly yet in the full ocean.

We headed south of Kona to a place near the Captain Cook monument, rented some kayaks, and headed across a bay. Once there, we used a simple disposable underwater camera and went snorkelling.

This first photo of the monument is NOT, as you can tell, one of our photos — it’s one of our souvenir postcards. But it shows well the general view above the surface. We parked our kayaks over to the side, as did a lot of people.

As you can see from this next photo, the bay is a bit sheltered, but not completely. We kayaked from about where the sailboats are shown docked at the bottom.

Ah, the fine art of complex photography with water still on the cover.

But we did get some shots of some of the fish…

The bottom of the ocean wasn’t exactly alive with colour, not surprising given the depth and the fact that a LOT of people come snorkelling here. I had some problems with my snorkel, and ended up almost feeling like I was being pounded against the rocks by the shore. I was trying to fix it, and some passing tourist group was yelling at me to get off the rocks. I felt like telling them to “F*** off, I’m trying to drown myself”, but I didn’t. I wasn’t there by choice, that’s for sure.

Later that night, we went to a very tourist-friendly luau at a hotel on the beach in “downtown” Kona. Yeah, it was kitsch, but well, it was our honeymoon. It was a fixed price, with free cheap pineapple juice and rum drinks. You could probably have drank a bucketful and not felt any effect of the alcohol, but it was fun, and the buffet was good. Roasted pork from the pig-in-the-ground was the highlight, of course.

They put on a full show for the tourists, making it seem like they were honouring their ancestors, of course, as most locations do. As an aside, it’s a bit interesting that some of the performers that “lead” the show actually are training to be professional actors, and isn’t a whole lot different for employment than being a character at Disney. They do their “show”, which includes both interacting in character and the performance and then disappearing back to their regular life. The highlight of the night was the fireeater although I confess I liked the early hula dance training as they explained what the hand gestures represented (casting nets, catching fish, etc.).

I found the day a bit tough with the kayak and snorkel, but in the end, it was a good day. Pleasant music, and then a short stroll back to our hotel.

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Tag Archives: snorkel

Honeymoon recap 14 – Napali Coast, Hiking and Lihue

Honeymoon recap 08 – Kona, Place of Refuge and boat cruise

Honeymoon recap 07 – Snorkelling and luau