We woke up early this morning and decided to call Usairways since according to them, the bag was in Honulolu, however we’d hadn’t heard or seen anything. They knew nothing, but promised to do research. 20 minutes later Maria called us from Hawaiian Airlines, unrelated to our call earlier. She had mom’s bag in Kauai. The people at Usairways, just dropped it off with no instructions. Anyway, we picked it up on our way to the southern coast. Although mom has been fairing quite well without it.

We drove to Po’ipu walked along the beach where there was a cute swimming and snorkeling cove. But we didn’t snorkel due to the current. I have been pressuring mom to get in and snorkel with me, but her excuse has been, “but I don’t have my bathing suit.” She got lucky this time. Then we drove along the coast to the small town of Kalaheo and stopped to have the best ice cream in the world at Lapperts. OMG, slap your momma delicious.

We stopped next at the spouting horn where the water from the waves shoot through the rocks and looked like a geyser. The coast was just beautiful with the black lava rocks. As we continued our drive, we stopped next at the Kauai Coffee visitors center where we saw thousands of coffee trees. They were much shorter than I expected. Mom tried the vanilla macadamia nut coffee, enjoyed it, but didn’t think it was exceptional. There were so many different kinds.

After that, we drove to Port Allen in search of glass beach. Even though the locals said it was more like glass sand, because so many people had picked through the sea glass, we still wanted to go. The shoreline is covered with millions of clear, aqua, and brown sea glass pebbles.The glass is from old bottles, flasks, windshields and windows that has been smoothened by moving ocean water and time. It takes the ocean about 10 to 30 years to create each glass frosted, jelly bean-like pebble you will find. The glass found at Glass Beach was mainly from broken bottles and auto glass dumped by Swiss Cheese Shoreline on the western end of Kauai.

Since we were in Port Allen we went to the Kauai Chocolate company and bought some yummies, ate lunch at the Port Allen Sunset Grill, and waited for the others to arrive. Fortunately we saw George and Carol across the street.

Our next trip was what we’d all been waiting for, the Na Pali coast sunset cruise. There were 50 of us that boarded Captain Andy’s 55-foot catamaran. We had to take off our shoes before boarding. There were three catamarans all lined up next to each other. We were on the second boat, so we had to walk through the first one to get to the second. It didn’t feel like there were 50 people, and we found a seat where 4 of us could sit. Once we left the dock, we learned that it was a good seat where Pat could stay dry from the spray coming off the bow.

We left the dock around 2:30 and returned about 7. We motored most of the way, which seemed odd since we were a sail boat. On the south western shores we saw an old sugar plantation, missile range testing site, and weather station. In 1992 Hawaii was hit by a hurricane with winds close to 197 mph which devastated much of the vegetation.

The crew was on the lookout for marine life and didn’t disappoint. We first saw a pod of spinner dolphins that when we slowed down, swam with the boat. I climbed on the front trampoline part and got a close up view. There were about 10 of them, and look different than the bottlenose dolphin because of their three shades of gray.

Then shortly after that the crew spotted a whale breaching about 100 yards off the port side of the boat. We all grabbed our cameras and hurried to the front of the boat. It was a humpback whale, probably an adolescent. The humpback whales migrate to the Hawaiian islands in November and stay through the winter to give birth. We learned that the islands don’t have any of the food they typically eat, so they go on a Hawaiian diet. While the calves are nursing, the mothers lose1/3 of their weight (4-8 tons) and the babies gain about 100 pounds and grow 1 inch a day. We saw the whale breach, show its tale and then dive, and fortunately I photographed it. It was so cool. They can stay under for 45 minutes, so we didn’t see this little one again.

We continued up the coast to the western side of the island to the beautiful Na Pali coast. It’s actually a state park that encompasses over 6000 acres of land, and 16 miles of the coast. The highest peak is 4000 feet, and the emerald green cliffs and red rocks are striking. Then when you add the blue water and white waves its spectacular. Kauai actually means cliffs and these beauties are the reason why.

Before reaching the end we turned around to head back and eat dinner. They served a salad, steak, shrimp, asparagus and potatoes. For dessert, cheesecake. I learned that the big ocean waves were starting to bother me, so mom, Pat and I didn’t eat much. Pat got hers wrapped to go, which was smart. I was better after having some ginger ale, and fresh air.

We watched the sun set to the west behind the forbidden island. It’s a privately owned island. It was a beautiful day and beautiful trip. I’d do it again in a second. Thanks Carol.

Tomorrow is my helicopter ride, golfing, a visit to the lighthouse, and if nice snorkeling at Anini Beach.