I stopped at the next park, Haena City Beach Park, to see what I missed in a real campground. It really wasn't much nicer than the park I had left. It did have a sandy beach that was pretty dumpy. This didn't stop hordes of people from trying to surf close to shore, on surfboards, boogie boards, and a few body surfing. I landed on the extreme west end of the beach where the waves broke a little smaller around the beginnings of a coral reef.
Despite my Aloe Gator SPF 40 Super Waterproof Sunblock, I did managed to get a little burn on the top of my legs the day before. So today I tried an experiment I had tooled up for in California: I have a thin Lycra-spandex dive skin that I bought to wear under my wetsuit. I discovered that it chills me down seriously in the slightest breeze if I take the top of the wetsuit off. I figured that if I wore that dive skin in my kayak, it would serve several purposes: It would protect me from the sun, it would protect me somewhat from the coral reef if I ended up in the water, and its cooling behavior when wet would help keep me cool in the tropics. It did all of these things very well, and I was quite comfortable in it. I don't know if I can recommend this to everyone in the tropics. Since I spent all day essentially sitting in the water, I had a ready supply to splash up on my arms when the sun came out and tried to heat me up. I was also wearing my old beat up felt hat to protect my face, a pair of loose nylon swimming trunks over the skin-tight Lycra for modesty, and a T-shirt to protect the Lycra from chaffing against my life vest. When I landed at Haena Beach, I felt like the most overdressed person for kilometers in all directions.
While I was at Haena Beach, I took a walk west on the edge of the coral reef. I took my mask and snorkel with me and jumped off the edge of the reef into deep water. Without flippers I was only able to dive down 4 meters or so, but the edge of the reef was very interesting. I found a few arches and caves in the coral, and went under the arches. One short cave had light at the other end of it, so I looked over there on my next dive. I recognized some of the same items in the bottom of the cave from the other end, so after another breath at the surface I went through the cave. One Item I saw in there turned out to be the axle from a bicycle wheel, which I picked up and tucked into my trunks to take to shore. (Unfortunately it slipped out in the surf so I didn't take it all the way to the trash bin). I didn't feel like I was seeing very many tropical fish until I came out of this cave. Apparently the fish hide in caves like these and when I went through it I chased them all out. As I looked up this time I saw dozens of fish scattering in all directions. On every dive I swam a little bit back down the edge of the reef until I made it back to the beach. The water became more an more turbid near the beach and the surge from the waves got stronger and stronger. I got worried about getting dragged across the reef and swam a ways out from shore until I was sure there was nothing but sand in front of me. Then I swam for shore, re-packed everything and launched to continue the kayak trip.
Taking my time and even stopping to snorkel, I still made it to Kee Beach at 11:00 am, 5 hours earlier than the earliest time Jamie would come by to pick me up. I decided to keep going and preview the Na Pali Coast area. This area is supposed to have some spectacular caves, including "The World's Second Largest Sea Cave" which is so large that tour boats motor inside in the mild swells of summer. The road ends at Kee Beach and only the rugged Na Pali Trail continues another 18 kilometers. Beyond that the terrain is so rough that even hiking trails are not possible. Only boats can get to the area southwest of Kalalau, the last campground.
As I paddled down the start of this area, there were a few dents in the cliff but no real caves yet. The waves rose up in some shallows here and reflected off the cliffs, summing with the next wave to create tall peaks and choppy water. This prevented me from being tempted by any of the little dents in the cliff. After what seemed like only a few minutes paddle to me, I came across Hanakapiai Beach. This is the first stop on the Na Pali Trail. The day hike out to here is supposed to be quite strenuous, rising 200 meters and back down to the beach. But I made it around to this beach in a very short time without breaking a sweat. The beach looked a little dumpy but a reasonable place to land and launch from. If the main campground at Kalalau is similar to this I will not have any trouble landing and launching there. That is where Jamie and I were planning to camp on Sunday.
After this beach the underwater topology apparently changed (deeper?) and the reflecting wave problem went away. The surface of the water close to shore calmed down and I was able to approach very close to the cliffs. I found a huge overhang in the cliff next to a waterfall, with some shallow caves in the side of it. Is this what the locals think is a big cave? Mike Malone told me to expect a "double door cave" next, where you can enter one cave and come out the other. I did find a beautiful pair of caves with a waterfall pouring down over one of the entrances. Looking inside, they went in different directions and could not possibly connect. The one with the waterfall really was a big cave! I went around the far side of the waterfall and into a tunnel that went back for tens and tens of meters. Then it opened up into a HUGE chamber. I guess the locals do know a big cave when they see one! I paddled out and started into the other cave. As I got to that opening, a twenty foot long double hulled tour boat went into the cave I had just left. Avoiding the waterfall and not even getting the tourists wet. Then a fifteen foot zodiac full of tourists followed the first boat in. Perhaps as many as 30 people on two motorized craft inside one cave. I have to agree: This really is a very big cave! As the boats left the cave a minute later, they roared out at full speed and went under the waterfall, eliciting screams from the tourists of course.
The next pair of caves was the Double Door Cave. What I had not been told is that the front door has a hole in the ceiling twenty meters inside where a waterfall pours through, free-falls most of the way down to strike the side of the cave and splash out into the deep water of the cave. Absolutely stunning. I backed in and saw light much farther back, and lots of rough looking water. So I went back out and paddled into the back door opening. The problem with this cave is the very back is half full of large boulders with waves breaking across them. A big wave could pull you onto these and then strand you there to get beaten up by the next wave. A large pointed rock sticks up on the left before the rest of the boulders and sort of marks the point of no return. During a quiet time in the waves I paddled between that pointed rock and the sloping roof on the left. Past this I saw a dim glow of light coming from the front door, difficult to see in glare from light coming in the back door. I went for it and made my way back to the waterfall. The waves coming down the long tunnel here are a lot less frightening when facing into them while paddling over them. I stopped next to the waterfall for lunch and to enjoy the sound and the view. While I was in there a double hulled fiberglass tour boat backed close to the entrance to give the tourists a view of the waterfall. They waved at me, I waved back. I had just taken an apple out of my lunch and wanted to close the hatch, which takes two hands. So I tucked the apple in my mouth to hold it just as a tourist with a telephoto lens took a picture. A sacrificial pig stuffed for the killing? I'll probably never get to see that picture.
Continuing southwest between two points on the cliff there were two small caves: One on each side of a jumble of rocks coming down to the ocean with fresh water running through the rocks. I backed into the cave on the left. The swell was calm enough around the rocks that I felt it would be easy to make a seal-landing on them and climb up the jumble. Without someone to catch my kayak if it drifted away, I was not comfortable doing this by myself. I resolved to land here when Jamie and I came down on Sunday. Farther south I came upon a volcanic dike that ran up the cliffs at an angle but had all the surrounding rock eroded away from it near the waterline. The result was a huge triangular slab of rock that sticks out from the cliff and touches down at a point offshore. I considered paddling around behind it but again it looked too rough to try alone. I saved this for the next trip by with Jamie for company.
I continued a little farther south, but timed my turnaround point to get me back to Kee Beach by 5:00 PM, so I didn't go all the way down to the Kalalau campground. On the way back northeast I paddled far from shore to get the view of he mountain range behind the cliffs. I saw fish jumping out of the water to skip along the surface for long distances. I wondered if I was seeing flying fish, but they moved to fast to see if they had wings. Later Jamie described seeing some flying fish which banked in mid air and did not travel in straight lines like the fish I observed.
When I got back to the area with all the caves, I turned close to shore to go through my favorite caves again. I went in the back door of the double door cave as a zodiac came by. A large set of waves came in just then and tossed me around. The zodiac turned like they were watching me. The third wave was the largest and it was a vertically wall of water nearly closing out the cave. I braced into it, and started getting surfed towards that field of boulders at the end of the cave. To avoid ending up there, I bailed out of the kayak and held onto the paddle. My improvised paddle leash worked fine and the kayak did not surf out of reach. In the rebound of the wave the kayak came back and ended up right next to me. I got it to flip back right-side up on the first try and jumped back on before the next wave came in. The zodiac was still standing by so I gave them the OK hand sign I learned from my SCUBA class (also adopted by the Tsunami Rangers in their official kayaking hand sign lexicon). The captain apparently got the message because he was long gone by the time I came out of the cave. Of course I took my time getting out, going out the other entrance even after my close call. Another fairly large wave was coming down that tunnel and the trough that preceded it pulled me close to the (difficult to see) sloping roof where the two caves meet. I had to push the kayak away from this wall/roof with the paddle, then paddle over the wave when it arrived. Then the rest of the trip out was a breeze.
I paddled into the Big Cave as I saw a tour boat approaching from the north. I figured it would be fun to sit inside the cave and watch them come in. I paddled in and then turned right out of sight in the big chamber. I waited and waited but they took their time. Finally I gave up and started back out the tunnel, and this is when they finally started in. Perhaps there is some protocol I am unaware of and they are not allowed in when somebody else is already there. I waved to the tourists and shouted "Have Fun!" Then I paddled back out a distance from shore and admired the eroded mountains again as I paddled back to Kee Beach.
I expected to see a channel through the end of the coral reef at Kee Beach, but it looked a little rough there. I kept going and found a small rip current coming out of the reef a little farther down. None of the rip currents that I saw anywhere else in Kauai were quite as obvious as the first one we saw in front of Sanders Beach. I surfed the mild waves through this gap in the coral and found myself stranded in a few inches of water. Without me sitting in it, the kayak was able to float again and I towed it to shore. I had arrived an hour early and regretted not staying out on the Na Pali coast longer. But after paddling 28 kilometers it felt good to rest. And the view over Kee Beach of the rugged Na Pali mountains made it a beautiful place to just sit for a while.
