A Different Kauai

So here I am back on Kauai after just a short time. I'm fortunate to have a husband who understands the need to help out our parents and gave me permission to visit more often. Hopefully I'll be able to help them get their house finished and sorted out and they can just concentrate on living their lives and not still building their retirement house.

I chose to come back in February due to the upcoming births of my next 2 grandsons, taking place in March and April, hopefully. I haven't experienced a Hawaiian winter since 1973 but I do remember them as being quite a bit cooler and a lot stormier than the summer trips I've made over the last 10 years. Well, what happens my first night here? I'm sleeping in my Washington pj's including socks and I'm covered with a blanket. No fans are running through the night and the doors and windows aren't opened until late in the morning. And the windstorm that hits takes down a palm tree in the folks' yard and blows around lots of building materials and other loose items on the lanai and carport. The big news was the monstrous waves expected to hit today, the biggest in at least a decade.

I headed out toward the north and stopped first at Kahili beach, a popular local surfing beach. If it weren't sunny I wouldn't have gone, the Hawaiian soil is very clay-like and it's a dirt road downhill to that beach. The surf was amazing and I was surprised the beach was accessible. So I traipsed down to the beach with all my gear and sat it on a driftwood log about 30 feet from the water. I was shooting with different lenses, trying for the best composition, lighting, etc and decided I might want to walk to the rocks on the north side of the bay. I noticed that the water had been quite high during the last high tide. I wandered away from my gear to ask a couple people if they knew the tide schedule, if it was going out or coming in when a wave came up a little higher than they had been. "I guess it's coming in" we all said simultaneously. I liked the look of that wave so got ready for the next one to try to get a picture of it. Well, it came up a little more energetically than the previous one. I snapped the shutter quickly when I realized that wave was going WAY further up the beach than it's little predecessor! My gear! I just began to RUN! (after a small scream!) and got there just as the water was reaching everything! I grabbed it all and headed up the shore, squishing in my sneakers and socks, winded and laughing!

Well, the waves were definitely big but nowhere near the 30-40 feet they were supposed to hit. The big windstorm messed up the giant waves so, though not as big, the wind made them quite dramatic. I took some shots at Kahili and Anini and looked at the Kilauea overlook and Princeville. The biggest problem was parking, I was not alone in my pursuit of the big waves. Once I got to Princeville I saw a massive traffic backup so decided to end my northward hunt there.  I did run back to Kealia beach which is always pretty wavy only to find it nearly glassy, then stopped for a quick look at Anahola beach. Included are a few of the better shots I got.

So the first day here is usually a relax after the long plane trip and time adjustment. Tomorrow the work begins and the blogs will most likely end...