We paddled on toKawelikoa Point,our destination. Jamie was wearing my hat because he forgot his visor (and his PFD -- Shame!). He pulled way ahead of me and disappeared around the point. When I finally caught a glimpse of him again, he was wearing his helmet instead of the hat. Uh-oh! He must be planning something dangerous. Sure enough he was looking at a shallow cave, a big dent in the cliff. When I got there he driftedcloser and closeruntil he was under the overhang. Then I saw what he was really up to. What I though was just a bump in the cliff to my left was actually a big rock with a channel behind it. Jamie waited out a large set of waves in "the dent" and then paddled around and out the channel. I figured that the next large set was a ways off so I paddled directly in. I turned and followed him out the channel with no problems.
A few tens of meters back along the point, Jamie stopped in front of alow cavein the cliff. This looked really hairy and I had never considered it. Jamie backed into it slowly, going farther and farther in until a large set made him glad he had his helmet on. "Didn't actually hit the ceiling" he said later. He also said that it was not as hairy inside as it had looked, and he was able to back farther in than he first thought possible. I chose to stay out completely. There is this optical illusion in caves like this, or perhaps it is a real hydrodynamic effect of water close to the shore: It often looks like the average water level slopes downhill as it enters a cave. This cave had this effect so strong that it looked to me as if the top of the cave was below the ocean level. I referred to it as "The Pit".
A pretty girl on the beach where we launched told us that there were some wonderful beaches down towards Kawelikoa Point that you can only get to by kayak. As we paddled out to the point, we perused all the beaches as we paddled past. In this whole rugged stretch of shore we only saw one building, in a valley with a dirt road winding over a saddle in the cliffs. Jamie thought that the beach in front of this house looked like the best one to land on for lunch. I had noticed some "no camping" signs on the beaches and figured that the owners of the house were probably tired of fending people off of their property. So I suggested that we land on a beach behind the rockyMolehu Point so we would not be getting in someone's view.
The landing was a little rough. The beach had a stony reef on it with waves braking over it. We stayed close to the edge of the point and tried to ride waves up over the reef. This would have worked if the waves didn't reflect off a stone wall and come back off 90 degrees to the incoming waves. Jamie managed to surf far enough up that this phenomenon only rolled him and his kayak over when he landed. He stood up wearing only a pair of thong briefs, and I thought "Wow! The breaker pulled his pants off!" But it turned out he was "working on his tan" and that was all he clothing he wore below the waist all day. I tried to power my way to shore just behind a wave and when it reflected it pushed me sideways onto the reef, out of my kayak, and then dragged me off the edge of the reef. My Teva-clone sandals slipped off my toes and became worse than useless. I had to let go of the paddle and fend off the kayak with one hand and pause to pull the sandals back on my toes with the other hand before I could even stand up. Then I could start dragging myself and the kayak up on shore. Fortunately it was a stony reef and not a coral reef so I did not get all scratched up.
While we were sitting on the sand eating lunch a car drove up the coast from the house and turned to come out the point towards us. We figured they were coming to make sure we could read the "No Camping" signs. But they drove right on by. It turns out that the dirt road into this valley ran right past us on the other side of a row of bushes. Two people came walking down that road later and passed near us, and then an all terrain vehicle went back in the other way. So much for finding a secluded beach that can only be accessed by kayak. We launched back into the waves with better luck (or skill) than our landing and paddled back to Kalapaki Beach. This was an eighteen kilometer round trip for Jamie and me, but I was still planing on paddling another seven kilometers to a city park campground for the night.
