Kaua'i 6: Anini Beach and back to life

On Tuesday, August 31, 2021, Linette and I awoke early just because we had managed to hold onto an early time zone, so we got to see the sun rise over the neighborhood. 

We took it easy that morning for a change, and Sienna spent some time doing some of her homework from "her bedroom" in the middle of the place.

Once we were all up, we headed for Anini beach. There we found a lovely area thick with shade trees right next to the sunny beach.

We hung up two hammocks, and set out 3 beach chairs that came with our AirBnB, and after all of the long days and the 9-mile hike the day before, it felt amazing to just sit and read books for 3 hours!

Linette even came around and served us grapes and other snacks. A couple next door to our AirBnB had a ton of food left over from their brief trip, and they were checking out that day, so they loaded us up with fruit, lunch meat and muffins, which made it so we didn't need to leave the beach for lunch. The AirBnB also came with coolers and insulated bags we could bring all our food and towels and stuff in. So along with the shade and hammocks, that made it my favorite day at the beach ever.

Eventually I decided to venture out and see how the snorkeling was in the area. (Everyone else needed another hour or two before they came out).

I saw these Hawaiian Damselfish that have an interesting diamond pattern.

 Here's picture from the Internet that shows the pattern better.

This is a Lei Triggerfish (humuhumu lei)
 

 
 And I love the Whitespotted Toby.
 

 

I saw another sea turtle, this time feeding on grass along the sea bottom. Then I saw another and another.

 

 

Jared and Linette came out and checked a couple of them out with me. 
 

 
 I love these shots when the turtle comes up for air.
 

 

Here's a 1-minute video showing Jared and Linette swimming near the turtle as it comes up for air and goes back to keep eating. We made sure we didn't touch them (which is against federal law). They appeared to keep on eating, so it didn't seem like we were disturbing them much.

Later, Jared and I found a pair of turtles, one of which was missing an "arm", and the other missing a "leg". Maybe they stuck together to help each other out.

Sienna came out, too, and we soon found a turtle for her to see in person as well.

I believe I counted 7 turtles total that I saw that day.

The weather was beautiful that day. Apparently it rained a little ways away, because we saw a rainbow from our hang-out spot.

As we packed up to leave the beach, the rainbow really went for it.

Linette drove most of the time so that we wouldn't die if I couldn't resist taking a picture of something.

We kept seeing the same retired couple and their son in the pool at our AirBnB every night, and they highly recommended a bakery. So that night we had pizza there, and it was pretty mediocre. But their cookies were amazing (macadamia chocolate chip; coconut...).

On Wednesday morning, we knew we were checking out, so for breakfast we needed to eat all of the remaining food.

We had scrambled eggs, fruit, yogurt, and the rest of the cereal (with milk, or over ice cream). We finished all 6 boxes of cereal, with the exception of the last of the Chocolate Toast Crunch (mostly because it wasn't quite worth finishing).

After breakfast, Sienna found a tiny lizard.

I called into a meeting at work from the lanai, and as I imagined returning to Utah and dealing with the smoky air again, I seriously thought, "You know, the kids need to get home, but there's no particular reason we couldn't stay for another week..."

But we packed up, checked out, and made our way down to the east side of the island again. Along the way, we went looking for a cool spot that Jared's friend had recommended, but we couldn't find it, so we just pulled over at a random beach and hung out for a few minutes.

We also turned up a random road to get a closer look at the cool green, craggy mountains over there.

Eventually we made it down to the Kaua'i Museum, and looked at some of the historical stuff there.

People may have immigrated to Hawaii as early as 400 A.D., with later waves of immigrants around 1000 A.D. The Hawiians remained isolated until James Cook arrived in 1778.

Here are little figures of the rulers of Hawaii over the years.

Here is a picture of Kaumuali'i, the last ruling chive, and Kekaiha'akulou, his "favorite wife." (Linette is totally my favorite.)

These wooden bowls were a big deal to them, and I thought they were beautiful.

After the museum, we dropped by Costco to look at a couple of things. We were used to everything being more expensive in Hawaii, so we were surprised that Costco's food was the same price as at home (but with outdoor dining and greener mountains in the background).

We kind of wanted to eat local food, but decided that if we could eat a little something for cheap, then we could last until dinner. So we let everyone get whatever they wanted, and we fed our entire family for $18.

One item they stock at Costco in Kaua'i that you don't see in Utah is surf boards.

Later we went to a couple stores to do some shopping, and then ended up at the Coconut Marketplace, where we all bought T-shirts and stuff. It was near where we had stayed during the first part of our trip, and was named after the nearby coconut groves.

Later, we sat to wait for a free Hula show that was supposed to happen that evening. I went for a little walk on a paved path along the beach that went behind a bunch of resorts, and sat on one of their recliner chairs for a while. When I got back to everyone else, it turned out the hula show wasn't happening (probably due to COVID), so that was too bad.

We all got a taco at "Tiki Tacos" ("Mexican food with a Hawaiian twist") and it was pretty good. We had been wanting to try those since we had stayed near there.

We finally headed out of Kapa'a, noting the gutted resort that has been through a few owners, none of whom could figure out how to restore the place back to profitability. 

We had a couple hours to kill before our 10pm flight, so we went to an isolated beach just a few minutes from the airport to hang out until it was time.

We were disappointed to be on the wrong side of the island to see the sunset.

Still, the sky started doing some cool stuff. For example, where are these beams of light coming from, if the sun is the opposite direction?

I noticed Sienna writing something in the sand. Then I noticed that she was writing, "Goodbye. Mahalo" (meaning Thank you), and I thought that was so cute. We were all just a bit sad to be leaving this beautiful place.

In spite of being on the wrong side of the island for a sunset, the sky lit up to the west and gave us quite a show.

The sky looked like it was on fire!

And we got amazing colors to the east, too! We kept running back and forth to look at "both sunsets" as they both evolved.

Here is a sequence of pictures in which someone else keeps joining...

It was so fun having kids along on the trip.

Here they are doing a "Mr. Grumps" face because they have to leave.

As the fun finally settled down, we made our way to the airport and headed for home.

This map of Kauai shows yellow flags where we did stuff, yellow dots where our boat tour went around the island, and yellow lines showing where we drove or hiked. It seemed like we did everything except the middle!

We had an all-night flight (I don't know that I really slept at all, despite all my preparations), stopped in Phoenix for an hour, and then flew home to Utah.

Sharon picked us up from the airport and brought us home. Here we are all pretending to be worn out from the trip.

We were tired from the flight, of course, but also rejuvenated from all of the beautiful things we had seen and experiences we had shared.

Thanks for sharing these memories with us as we have looked back on this trip! Mahalo.