We have visited four of the major islands of Hawai'i: Oahu, Maui, Hawai'i, and Kaua'i. Kauai the oldest of the main occupied islands that make up Hawai'ian Archipelago, and it is our favorite. It is also the most heavily eroded -- but then some five million years of exposure to the sea and wind will do that to you. Kaua'i is rugged, to say the least. The only road way to speak of follows the coast line, more or less, from Ha'ena on the northwest side of the island clockwise to the US Navy's Pacific Missile Range Facility at Barking Sands on the southwest side of the island. The sheer face of the Napali coast (Napali means "the cliffs" in the Hawai'ian language) prevents the road from encircling the island.
Kaua'i is further along than the other bigger islands in the process that will ultimately reduce them all to low coral atolls, but its highest peak, Mt. Wai'ale'ale, is still some 5000 feet above sea level. Unlike some of the newer islands, you don't see black sand beaches on Kaua'i—at least we didn't—although there are some gray beaches around Port Allen that are the result of mixing volcanic black sand with the whiter stuff; the whiter stuff being the result of coral and sea shells having been ground into small bits by erosion and parrot fish poop (white sand is parrot fish poop, believe it or not). The fact that it is further along in the erosion process is what makes it so rugged and much of it nearly inaccessible.
The view of Kaua'i here was taken by an astronaut aboard a space shuttle a few years ago. In it you can clearly see Waimea Canyon on the western side of Wai'ale'ale. It is a rift zone that didn't quite get to the point of shearing off and falling into the Pacific Ocean. To the west of Waimea Canyon, where the white strip of beach stops, is the Napali Coast: sheer cliffs that rise a couple of thousand feet above the ocean, deeply eroded, and covered in lush vegetation. On the north shore, to the west of Hanalei Bay, is Tunnels Reef. Tunnels Reef is that last little bit of what appears to be land jutting out into the Pacific Ocean. It's really a reef and, reportedly, the best snorkeling on the island. Unfortunately, we didn't get to confirm that. On the day we visited that part of the island the Pacific Ocean was crashing over the reef and making conditions inside the reef favorable only to surfers.
I'm not a fan of helicopters, usually. They tend to be noisy, the ride is choppy—and they don't glide very well. Still, they have their good aspects. Kaua'i is best seen from helicopter. It didn't take much convincing to get everyone on board for a helicopter tour of the island, and Blue Hawai'an had a chopper big enough to take six people on a tour. Much to my amazement, the Eurocopter Eco Stars that Blue Hawaiian flies are much nicer than the military helicopters I'm used to. It was an exciting 50 minutes or so circling the island. On days when the weather permits, they take you to the top of Mt. Wai'ale'ale so you can see the beauty of 3000 foot cliffs and waterfalls everywhere. The waterfalls are always flowing, thanks to an annual rainfal of 400 to 500 inches. I wonder how many days there actually are when you can fly over Mt. Wai'ale'ale.
Kaua'i is called the Garden Isle because agriculture is—or was—the main industry. Sugar cane was grown all over the place where you could plant the stuff. Unfortunately, lower priced competition slowly strangled the sugar cane industry so that there is no commercial operation still operating. No matter, the sugar cane hauling bridge over the Wailua River is getting an upgrade. Talk about timing! I suppose the renewed bridge will have a function, however. The traffic of so backed up on the one main road that they have "contra-flow traffic" between Lihue and Wailua. Contra-flow traffic means that the center lane of the three-lane road is open to southbound traffic in the mornings and open to northbound traffic the rest of the day—weekends and holidays excepted, of course. Someone gets paid to go out there every morning and set up traffic cones to mark the center lane as southbound and then remove them around noon.
Still, Kaua'i remains the Garden Isle. Coffee is starting to take over from sugar cane in some of the drier parts of the island. Coffee grows in semi-arid conditions and all the large islands have micro climates that result in there being a rainy side and a dry side to each. The east or windward side of all the islands is the rainy side and that's what you see in most pictures you see of Hawai'i. The west sides are pretty dry—dry enough for coffee, cactus and agave to flourish. Don't believe me? the thing that looks like a tree in this picture is really the flower stem of an agave plant. The Mexicans make tequila from agave plant, but, so far, no one has tried to do that on Kaua'i. They do however, have a distillery that makes rum. Pretty good stuff too. Look out Puerto Rico. Rum, by the way is made from sugar cane so that industry might see a come back.
This particular scene is on the south side of Kaua'i where it is drier. The place where this picture was taken is at an overlook to an ancient lava tube called Spouting Horn. This isn't the only lava tube in the islands that spouts seawater from the crashing surf, but it likely is the biggest. Actually, there are two lava tubes, but only one spouts now. Way back when sugar cane was king, some sugar grower dynamited the other lava tube because its salt spray was damaging his sugar cane crop. Now its more like a big saltwater pool in the lava that rises and falls with the surf and tide.
Since this is on the south side of the island, the wind and surf don't pound like they do on the east side, where our condo was located. They have some pretty good snorkeling and the fishing is pretty good too—or so I am told. This fishing boat went out less than a quarter mile before dropping anchor off Spouting Horn. There are lots of good game fish as well as food fish in these waters: ono, opah, ahi, opakapaka, just to name a few. For a long time I didn't understand why the yellowfin tuna was called ahi (ahi means "fire" in Hawai'ian). I finally learned that back in the old days, when Hawai'ians fished from canoes with a bone hook and twisted coconut fiber fishing line, when they hooked a yellowfin and it made a dash for freedom the fishermen would hold the line against the edge of the canoe to give the fish more drag to pull against. The yellowfin run was so powerful that friction would make the edge of the canoe smoke from the force and speed of the run. So the yellowfin became ahi, fire, because of the power of its run. Now you know.
As far as snorkeling goes, I agree that you get to see a huge variety of fish in the reefs. We saw lots of tang, surgeon fish, goat fish, angel fish, and the famous Humuhumunukunukuapua'a. Oh, yes, and some pufferfish too. The water was pretty clear and Poipu Beach and the sand slopes gently into the water. We heard that the water was clearer a day or so earlier, but conditions the day we were there were pretty good by any standard I'm used to.
Since tourism is the main industry in Hawai'i nowadays, everyone seems to be trying to rebrand what once was into something to catch the tourist eye. The sugar plantation at Kilohana is a fine example of that. The centerpiece is the 16,000 square foot mansion that sugar baron Gaylord Park Wilcox had built in the 1930s. It was a three bedroom affair and all three bedrooms were expansive, to say the least; they take up the whole second story. All the rooms are large, and the fine dining restaurant, Gaylord's, takes up most of the ground floor level. The grounds are spacious, but that is only a small part of whole spread. This was a sugar plantation and it is situated on the slopes of a volcanic cone that rises above the floor of an ancient volcanic caldera that is miles in diameter.
Nowadays the current owners are developing various orchards of citrus, bananas, papaya, rambutan, lychee, and other tropical goodies. I have been familiar with rambutan for some time. I first encountered them in Thailand; the Thais were selling them and eating the the white pulpy berry that hides under that red hairy husk. I didn't know what they were called and simply called them "hairy berries." Turns out that rambutan is the Malay word for "hairy." They are related to lychees and have a similar flavor. Pretty good, but a little work getting them out of their wrappers.
Since this was a plantation and wide-spread, there was a narrow gauge train that ran through the property and assisted in most aspects of the crop cycle. It certainly was used during the harvest; mature sugar cane is a huge grass and heavy.
