I had originally rented two kayaks for one week. My plan had been to keep one of them for a few more days and try to finish the circumnavigation of the island. Jamie and Jana had talked about keeping both of them so they could still do short day trips themselves. But they were starting to talk about doing touristy things and they figured it would not be cost effective to keep one around. If they wanted to go kayaking they would just rent one for that day. Unfortunately, the touristy things they wanted to do required the car. Since we were "sharing" the car, I would not be able to go to any areas I had not paddled yet. The swells at sea were too large to paddle anyway, so I gave up on the quest to paddle all the way around the island. Jamie and Jana said I could tag along on the touristy trips, so we turned the kayaks back in on time. The kayak trips are over.
After the rough day on the water the day before, we are all happy to sleep in late. Then we drove to the Limahuli Botanical Gardens to make reservations for a guided tour. This volunteer run organization owns an entire watershed valley that was once terraced from the mountains to the sea by the natives to grow taro. The terraces were mostly destroyed by cattle when Kauai was overrun by cattle ranchers. The cattle ate the cover and caused erosion. Then the cattle men imported non-native plants at random, seeding the mountains from airplanes, creating ecological disasters that are still being played out. The people at the botanical garden are slowly uncovering sections of the taro terraces, and preserving endangered plant species.
In the few hours before our botanical tour, we waited at Haena Beach. While Jamie watched his daughter, Jana and I went out to snorkel off the edge of the reef where I went a few days ago. The waves were a little rougher and getting off the end of the reef was a bit more trouble. We sat in little channels in the edge of the reef to put on flippers and masks. Jana said she was ready to go so I waited for the next wave and pushed myself off over the top of it. The backwash from the wave, my push, and my paddling quickly got me out the channel and into deep water safe from the edge of the coral. Jana held back and didn't launch, then a large wave came in and dragged her back 2 or 3 meters along the reef top, banging and scratching up her knee. She decided not to go snorkeling off the reef edge and walked back. I stayed in the water, figuring landing here is more dangerous than launching. The water was a lot more turbid than the last time I was here, but still orders of magnitude more clear than almost any day on the northern California coast back home. I saw a sea turtle in the water below me and dived after him. He swam away from me and obviously reacted to my approach. But he disdainfully swam just fast enough to stay out of my reach until I ran out of air and had to return to the surface. Then he disappeared from my sight.
When Jana and I relieved Jamie from baby-sitting, he went body surfing. The water looked way to dumpy to me, but Jamie stayed out in the surf for a long time. While we were watching he only got a few short rides on the waves. But he says just swimming out there in the surf is fun. Besides, being comfortable in the surf is a good survival skill for a kayaker. I should learn to body surf.
