The map I got from the State was missing many of the reefs according to my local informant. Even though it was called a "Recreational Map of Kauai" I noticed it only listed some of the state campgrounds and only one of the city campgrounds. Right after I got it on Monday I walked over to the county offices and found someone who was willing to show me where all the city campgrounds were. These turned out to be an average of twenty kilometers apart, making a camping trip around Kauai by kayak a serious possibility. Jamie's wife Jana was chaffing at having me in and out of their apartment so I planned a two day trip across the north side of the island and left around noon. According to the man at the county office, there were two city parks within 24 kilometers of Moloaa bay, so I planned on paddling to the farthest one in Hanalei Bay.
Just a few kilometers past where Jamie and I turned back the day before there was half of an old crater or caldera with a rock, Makapili Rock, just offshore in the middle. This turned out to be a beautiful place with near vertical walls that still managed to be covered with greenery in the tropical climate. The greenery was covered with large white flowers that turned out to be some sort of large heron-like bird. There were also a few frigate birds, large birds with split tails like a swallow. Makapili Rock was reputed to have a cave through the middle of it, and this cave turned out to be just barely navigable by kayak. (Almost too shallow with the current tides). My first cave on the island of Kauai! The rock was connected to the shore by a spit of sand with dumpy waves breaking onto the west shore. But after I went through the cave and around to the east side of the spit, the waves on that side were much milder. I made an easy landing and launch a few minutes later after stretching my legs.
Around the north point of the crater I could see the next point, Kilauea, with a lighthouse on it. Just off this point is a large rock, and I was told that the channel between the rock and point had some of the choppiest water around the island. It was choppy, but nothing to get upset about. The swells at sea were still a mild five feet ten seconds, so perhaps I didn't go through here on a fun day. All along this shoreline I found a few dents in the cliff, but nothing that I was interested in paddling into. I didn't see another navigable cave until I got around the point and halfway into the next harbor. Here I found a two meter tall ledge of basalt sticking out from the cliff. In one place there was an arch leading to a round chamber against the cliff, open at the top. I paddled in and spun around in the chamber before paddling out and continuing on. This turned out to be the last cave of the day since the rest of the day was spent in front of sandy beaches and behind coral reefs. When Jamie went past this section of shoreline several days later, he says he found eight different caves! I think he was willing to back into some of the dents in the cliff that I avoided, and counted all those.
We had practiced getting through the reef the day before because it is supposed to be a good way to get out of the swells and to find a calm place to land. Although there were no swells to speak of, I went inside the reef at Kalihikai Beach. Not for any good reason, it just seemed like the thing to do. Unfortunately the tide was out and falling so the water inside the reef was very shallow. I had trouble finding deep water and the kayak kept hitting bottom. A few times I considered getting back out from behind the reef and back into deeper water outside the breakers. But the channels that I passed seemed a little rough and the bottom occasionally got deeper, so I kept going. I stopped to get some water at the Anini City Beach Park, where I could have stopped to camp but continued on. The water was deep here so I stayed behind the reef and then regretted it later when it got shallow again. It finally got so shallow near Princeville that I ended up wading out of the reef towing my kayak behind me. I resolved to stay out of the reef from now on.
There are a lot of houses to rent in Priceville, and I had several fliers from places in this area. On the map the houses were close to the water but from the ocean I saw that the entire community was up on a knoll with pretty steep trails to the water. Jamie and Jana had rejected this as a place to rent because it was really just a collection of condominiums. Now that I saw the area, I would have rejected it because getting to the water with a kayak and the rest of my equipment would have been a lot more work. Moloaa Bay was much more attractive than this, had a nicer beach and was more rural with a smaller number of houses in one place.
The place the guy at the county had directed me was called Black Pot City Beach Park. I was talking to him for one reason only: to find campgrounds. I distinctly recall showing him my more detailed map and asking him where the campground was. "On the spit" he said. I came around a coral reef that extended into Hanalei Bay and followed the channel markers into a small river here. Where the river turned north just before emptying into the bay there was a long spit of land, and it did have a City Park on it. But it was obviously not a campground. I talked to some locals having a BBQ on the end of the spit and they told me the nearest campground was Anini Beach, six kilometers back the way I had just come. I had already traveled 25 kilometers and arrived around 6:00 PM, with just enough time to cook dinner and set up my tent. I didn't have the time to paddle this far, especially when I would be discouraged at having to retrace my steps. When the locals heard that I was in a kayak, they told me to just camp in the city park. If I got up and left early, nobody would notice. I set up my tent and started preparations for dinner.
But before dinner I called Jamie to tell him that I had successfully navigated the first day of solo paddling. I talked to Jana first, then just as Jamie was about to pick up the phone a guy walked up to me and interrupted. He had heard me mention the camping situation and told me "You don't want to camp here". I had heard terrible rumors about the state campgrounds: Jackbooted rangers prodding permitless campers awake in the night, pulling guns on people, confiscating camping equipment to guarantee that you come back to court to pay your fines. "What do they do to you if they catch you camping here?" I asked. He shook his head, and said: "The local scene here is ..." Then Jamie came on the phone and started pumping me with questions about the trip I just completed. He was planning a day trip and wanted to know the best places to go kayaking. I tried to listen to both conversations and failed. The guy standing near me said that he would give me a ride to the next real campground, but I didn't have time to tell him I had a kayak and a bunch of equipment that would have to get packed up first. Before I got off the phone with Jamie, this guy gave up waiting for me and drove off.
I worried about the "local scene" and wondered what could be wrong with the area. The locals who suggested that I should camp here were having a sort of family dinner picnic at the beach. They had an awning set up, two picnic tables with lots of food on them. This turns out to be a popular way for families to spend their evenings on Kauai. All the parks that I saw in the evenings had families sitting out to eat dinner, light a campfire, and sit up talking until 11:00 at night. But if the "local scene" is so bad, I could imagine lots of things that would make me not want to camp here. I figured I would finish dinner and then slip across the river. On my way in I had stopped over there to look at a flat sandy spot above the high tide line behind some rocks that was shaded by trees. I started re-packing my equipment with the plan of setting up camp over there after dark when the "local scene" would not know where I disappeared to. But as I was eating dinner, a man came over and asked what I was doing. I told him I was leaving as soon as I finished dinner. He tuned out to be the caretaker for the park, and saw that I had a kayak and a tent already set up. He gave me permission to camp there for only one night! So I started feeling better about the local scene and ended up staying there after all.
