Day 2 Kauai - Wildlife

The roosters didn't seem to bother us as much this morning. Not sure why, but we'll take it. Yesterday I was desperately trying to figure out how Steve and I were going to get to see the Na Pali Coast. I finally figured it out. My parents would go on a snorkeling trip to Na Pali in the morning. Then Steve and I would take the sunset cruise on the same boat with Captain Andy that afternoon/evening. They would take the kiddos in the afternoon and it would work perfectly. Yeah! So we had a fun morning with just the 4 of us.

But first we ate breakfast with Aunt Tina and Uncle Brian at Grind's Cafe again. I had the best French toast I think I've ever had. Oh, so yummy!

Then we drove through the Tunnel of Trees. We actually went this way because we missed our original turn. I'm glad we did. This was pretty neat.


First stop of the day was the Spouting Horn. I saw a lot of pictures with a lot more water coming out. But it was still kind of neat.


Next stop, our beach of the morning....Poipu Beach Park. I read it's a great place for kiddos. I also read that you are likely to see the monk seals in the summer months. I guess this seal didn't realize it is winter. I was excited though. The monk seal is an endangered species. I saw estimates that there are only about 1,000 of these left. And no....it's not dead. I saw it lift its head once.

More sand play for Edee.

Mallory played in the water and the sand. We had a really fun morning.

Then it was off to get cleaned up for our sunset dinner cruise. We handed the kiddos off and hopped on the boat. My mom said that if we saw half of what they did that morning it would be a great trip. I guess they had a fantastic time!

We did too. The most unexpected part of our cruise was the number of whales we saw. At times we were surrounded by as many as 8 whales. It was crazy! I saw 2 full breaches. The whales were completely out of the water. And they were pretty close to the boat. It was amazing!!!! I was so excited. No pictures though. I think any pictures someone actually catches of a breach would have to be a still taken from a video. They are impossible to predict and therefore impossible to catch in a still photograph.


Once we got to the coast, I took a ton of pictures. I actually had a really hard time deciding which ones to include here.




Here we are with the Na Pali coast. It was beautiful! No wonder they film so many movies there--Jurassic Park, King Kong, South Pacific, Pirates of the Caribbean to name a few.





We saw a rainbow. I'm amazed my camera did so well catching it.

Everyone was talking about dolphins on our trip. According to the captain, the best time to see the spinner dolphins is on a morning cruise. He said that the evening cruises see dolphins maybe once a week. And they typically see the smaller, spinner dolphins. But we lucked out and found some bottlenose dolphins. They are about 2x the size of the spinners. They were so playful. It was really fun!




Notice the jackets. It started to get chilly. But isn't the sunset beautiful!?!


We had such a great time! Thanks again Nana and Papa for watching the girls for us.