low_delta

I just did a search, for the first time, of "secret tunnels kauai" to see what info is out there about my hike, that wasn't covered in the guidebook. I was amazed to learn that there is a series of at least five tunnels that lead all the way to the north shore! Wow!

According to this account, it sounds like each tunnel gets more difficult.

The tunnels are about 6 feet wide and roughly 7-10 feet high with a more than occasional need for a head duck and there are several tunnels each with their own unique flavor. One was blocked off with rocks but passable. Most had ankle high water running through them. One was waist deep. Another had ankle high mud for 2 miles. And yet another filled with knee deep mud in one section. We found and traveled four. There were more ahead of us too. Each tunnel opened up into a new and beautiful site as it neared us closer to the mouth of the Hanalei River on the North Shore. When we finally hit the 5th tunnel and realized it required crawling on our bellies we decided we had enough adventure for one day.

This site has a slightly more detailed account of a trek, and they have some good pictures. There are sixteen in a gallery behind the link in the upper right of the page.

Maybe I will go back up there. I could have Cyn pick me up at the other end of the trail. Or plan on making it an overnight, in case it's impassable... :-)

We went to the beach one day.


Everyone asks why I didn't come home with a tan. That's because (1) I don't really tan, (2) I have to slather on the sunscreen and (3) we only did the beach once, for a few hours. As nice as that was, I can only sit still for so long, when there's so much else to see. Next time, maybe...

( a few more )

The Royal Hawaiian Hotel

You can see Cyn in this picture. She's sitting near the ridgetop, just to the left of the little peak in the center. If you lean close to your monitor, you can see one white pixel. that's her. I think she has her head down. Probably looking at pictures on her camera.

( +15 )

On Monday morning, bright and early (like, 8:30), we drove up the road to Ke'e Beach. It's at the end of the road, on the northwest end of Kaua'i. The day before, we had taken our helicopter ride, which is when I took this photo.


Ke'e beach is right at the bottom of the picture. You can see the road winding through the trees at the base of the cliffs. Our pilot called it "the land of no parking spaces." There were only about four cars in the lot when we got there. We walked around the point to Ha'ena beach, which is in the cove. Then we walked the road back. As you can see, the beaches are ringed with reefs. They say it's great snorkeling in the summer when the ocean is calm. That's a really big reef (obviously) out from the point on the far side of the cove. The point in the distance is Princeville, and the point in the haze beyond that is Kilauea (pictures of that tomorrow). You can see two little points sticking out into the bay this side of Princeville. Just this side of the nearer one is where the road headed up into the valley where our cottage was. The second is the near side of Hanalei Bay (the other side of which is Princeville). So there you have it. Now back to our walk...

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Two weeks ago, we took a helicopter tour on Kaua'i. Last thursday, there was a fatal crash there. The pilot was a Vietnam vet, been flying choppers since the war (at least), logged 5 years in that particluar model... Four people dead, three critically injured (including the pilot). Crashes happen on the island, almost every year, apparently. But like airline crashes, you don't let it bother you too much, because of the number of flights they do.

There was another fatal crash this sunday. One dead, two critically injured. This time it was the same company we flew, and the same model of aircraft. The article didn't release the pilot's name, so I wonder if it was our pilot. I believe they only had two choppers, but I'm not sure how many pilots they have.

http://www.thehawaiichannel.com/news/11226790/detail.html?subid=22100441&qs=1;bp=t

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/6600AP_HI_Helicopter_Crash.html?source=rss

So far, since I've been back, every dream I've remembered except one has been set on the island. A generic representation of it, anyway. And I've been remembering my dreams a lot this week. This means I've been waking up slowly in the middle of them a lot. There's one thing that's happened quite a bit. I wake up a little bit, trying to figure out where I am. My first thought is that I'm at a tunnel. There's a bluish spot of light (the clock radio) and a big rectangular outline next to it, that reminds me of a tunnel entrance. This is the edge of the window shade. So I sit or lie there trying to figure out where I am. This has happened at least three times.

I had deja vu last week. It was while we were in a tunnel. I usually get that feeling when important things or big changes are happening.

While I was doing this...


Cyn was doing this...

We flew American Airlines. Actually, we also flew American Eagle out of Milwaukee. They were the ones who scheduled their pilot with the absolute minimum number of hours downtime between our flight and her previous one. So when it was an hour late getting in, ours had to be an hour late getting out. We were a little worried that our two hour layover wasn't going to be enough, but it was. We got off the plane, jogged up to our gate, and they had just started boarding. We stood there for ten minutes waiting for our turn.

After we touched down in L.A., the plane sat in an alley waiting for a gate to open up. We were a little more worried, because we only had forty-five minutes between flights. We were there for half an hour, so when we disembarked, we jogged up to our gate and got right on the plane.

Other than that, the flights were pretty uneventful. Saw Mt. Wilson from above (which we saw up close, last trip). The sunset lasted a really long time over the ocean, since we were flying into it. It was just dark in Honolulu. After those short layovers, our luggage still made it to the carousel before we did. We were impressed. Not so impressed with the events that made that an impressive feat, though.

We learned that American does direct flights to Kaua'i. That would have been good to know. Would have gained us a day on the island, not having to jump between Oahu and Kaua'i. I had planned on doing a little bit of sightseeing there, but it turned out we did very little. Saw Waikiki beach, and that was about it.

I was surprised at the size of the plane running between the islands. They do a $39 flight every hour, so I figured it was a little commuter plane, but it sat six across. About 120 people. They served guava juice on that flight.

The return flights were less eventful. We left just after sunset, and arrived in St. Louis about an hour before sunset. A six hour flight, IIRC. Couldn't sleep much. The flight was rough the whole way. Just like a bumpy road. No big potholes, just an uneven surface. When I tried to sleep, I kept dreaming I was in a car. I kept waking up because in my dream, the car would be going up and down hills and around curves. But then the plane would not be, so the discrepancy woke me up. We sat up front under the screen where they were showing Rocky Balboa. The bright flashing lights didn't help me to sleep either. Between all that and the rough ride, I didn't get much more than an hour of light, interrupted sleep. We had two hours from St. Louis to Milwaukee. It was bright and sunny, but I slept a lot better on that one.

I'm a bit disappointed about the some things we didn't get to do. We didn't take a boat tour. We didn't see any whales or sea turtles. We didn't see the National Tropical Botanical Gardens. I didn't see the Alakai Swamp. Didn't see Pearl Harbor. Probably a few other things I'm forgetting just now.

I'm getting nervous about my pictures from my new camera. First of all, they all turned out underexposed. I had a polarizer on it, but the camera checks exposure through the lens, so it should compensate. It had a lot of trouble focusing in dim light, which I blame on the polarizer. I'm pretty sure I only used it on my telephoto lens, and but all my shots seem to be bad. I don't recall having any trouble with the handful of pics I took before the trip.

The second problem is that I can't yet view the pics I took in RAW. My friend gave me a link to the Adobe site for free downloads, but I first have to upgrade Photoshop. So I've got a couple hundred pics I won't even be able to see for a couple of days.

It's frustrating because these pictures are my memories. I remember the last day pretty well (so far), but anything earlier in the week, I need the pics. The underexposed pics are not going to be great pictures. They'll be fine for showing people what we saw, but I intended to come away with a few spectacular shots.