Kauai Vacation: Day Seven

On this day, we went on a boat ride up the Napali Coast. It was an awesome birthday present to me from Kelly. We got a view of the coast of the forbidden island of Malakai and a number of historical landmarks along the west side of Kauai where it is believed to be the first place the Hawaiian people settled. I loved hearing some of the history of the island and seeing where people once lived. It is quite impressive the terrain they had to navigate to make life possible in certain areas. We also got to see missile launching pads on one of the government controlled beaches that is closed to the public. Apparently they do weapons testing there sometimes. It was fun to see some areas we have hiked on before from the ocean. You get a different appreciation for the landscape seeing it from afar rather than hiking right in the middle of it.

We took the morning tour which is 6 1/2 hours and includes continental breakfast, snorkeling, lunch, and drinks. It seemed like a good idea to go the first half of the day so that we would have the rest of the day to do other things. My suggestion to anyone who goes on one of these tours - make sure you are a morning person who loves snorkeling if you choose the morning option. Otherwise, the sunset tour sans snorkeling would be a better choice. We ended up not snorkeling, even though other people did, because the water was quite choppy and the current was strong due to all the recent rain. We did have an excellent time taking in the sights and it was a unique experience; however, the initial check-in time was 7:15 am which meant we woke up at 6 am to be there on time. By the time we got off the boat and back to our hotel we were exhausted and ended up taking a nap for most of the rest of the day light hours (as is evidenced by the lack of any photos for that day after the boat trip). So, our logic for doing the morning tour was a bit faulty.

view from the boat





Kelly watching people snorkel - it didn't look very fun