Kaua'i

It was a particularly cold and rainy winter in Vancouver.   After having worked a long stretch over the entire holiday period, I had a week off in mid-January and, fed up with weeks of grey skies,  decided to call my friend Jerry over in Hawaii and take up his offer of dropping by for a few days of sun to that jewel of an island I had heard so much about.  The flights were open and within a few hours of having spoken to him, I was off to Lihue, via Honolulu.    Jerry lives in Hanalei, on the North shore of Kaua'i and indeed it is as beautiful as everyone says.  From his yard, you can see 'Bali Hai' (the mountain backdrop in the classic film "South Pacific") and the spit famously called "Puff the Magic Dragon" from that classic song. The waves were big and surfers were out.  Unfortunately, I was a day late to see some monster waves that brought out Laird Hamilton and his jet ski crew.  I saw him the next day though, out on his stand up paddle board cruising in and out of regular surfers.

 

Hanalei is in a large, spectacular bay, the other side of that natural wonder that is the Na'Pali coastline. The town has an interesting mixture of laid back, granola types, wealthy haoles from the mainland and so called "born & raised" locals...  Of course, there are many expensive condos and hotels  but no where near as developed as say on Oahu or Maui. Most people hope it remains that way. Still, it's an expensive place and one wonders how anyone can afford to live there.  Seems that you are either wealthy or you work for the wealthy or you work in the tourist industry. 

I met Jerry's friends and we had some great dinners, bonfires and movie nights.  During the day, I hung out with Johannes who, like me, was there for the first time, visiting his sister.  We tried surfing (not too successfully) with the rest of the gang who were riding the waves quite nicely.  Went snorkeling with sea turtles on the reef and did a road trip to the South-eastern part of the island, the Waimea Canyon and the look out point to the Na'pali coastline.  We were told more than once how lucky we were to have blue skies day after day as it usually rains a lot in the winter months,  especially the mountain peaks tend to be covered in clouds.

 

One my way back, I stopped in Honolulu for a day to see my other good friend Robert and his family who live near Pearl Harbour.  We had a picnic and, on my last day, the sunset was amazing, a lone sailboat on the horizon. Shortly after that sun had set and the stars of that tropical night came out, it was time for the flight back to the  North Wet Coast.