Creatures by Kayak

Today was our first day not eating at the hotel breakfast, in large part because we thought it would be nice to have our room cleaned at least once during our week-long stay. Instead, we continued our frequent tacos meal plan. This time we had breakfast tacos – black beans, scrambled eggs, onions, avocado, cheese, tomato, cilantro, chipotle mayo, etc. As has been the theme for our tacos this week, they were delicious.

After breakfast we got ourselves ready to head out for the day. Fortunately, today included little driving, as both of our activities took place in the nearby town of Hanalei. Our first stop was at the Hanalei Neighborhood Center where the local Farmer’s Market went from 9:30 to noon. It was quite the bustling place! Parking was a bit difficult, so we found a side street and walked a few blocks to arrive. Vendors ranged from vegetable and fruit stands, to clothing and jewelry, to flavored waters and kombucha. While we walked around the entire venue, enjoying some live music being played, we focused primarily on the fruit stands. Most vendors offered samples of their pineapples, and we enjoyed those samples greatly. We’d hoped to find a soursop sample but weren’t successful and we were more excited by other fruits than to try this one again. We purchased another pineapple, a mango, and two beautiful avocados. Content with this to supplement the food we still had, we bid farewell to the market and headed back into the center of town.

Our main objective for the day was to do some kayaking. We headed to Kayak Hanalei for a rental. Here we were able to rent a tandem boat, along with life jackets and paddles, for the day. The river entry was immediately on their property and they had two main routes for paddling (wait for it…); up and down stream! Up stream headed to a wildlife reserve and downstream would bring us to the ocean. With hopes of doing both, with a break back at the shop for lunch, we headed out.

Our first route was upstream. The wind wasn’t that strong, but the current was noticeable. I’ll get this out of the way now, we struggled keeping the boat straight, but did better and moved faster than many other people we saw. Heading upriver was a lovely venture. The riverbanks were sometimes steep drop-offs from the road, we suspect a result of the recent flooding. Otherwise, they were lush with plant-life and constantly draping limbs into the water. The most common plants were dense thickets of Yellow Nasturtiums, Hawaii’s state flower. They were in full bloom, a lush green with bright yellow flowers protruding from the leaves. Countless flowers had fallen into the water, which were fun to see as they floated by and resulted in the occasional buildup of yellow flowers as the got caught in nooks fallen logs.

As we made it further upstream, we passed under the bridge that connected Princeville to Hanalei and into the wildlife preserve. This we were able to take for another mile or so before it got too shallow to continue. Continuing with general themes, as opposed to specific highlights, it was interesting to see various “unofficial” buoys in the water periodically as we paddled. For a while we’d speculated about what these were, but near the end of our first leg we saw a trap beneath the water, we suspect collecting crayfish of some sort. The route upstream continued to get narrower and more lush, the nasturtiums continued but also bamboo groves and trees that seemed like mangroves filled the bank. It was beautiful.

Along the way, and later as we went downstream, we had the expected joy of experiencing some Hawaiian rain. We hit brief patches of significant rain. This was super interesting as we could clearly see specific clouds that were raining, and we could see blue sky surrounding them. The rain came and went, many times, but overall was light. By contrast, as we continued to look towards the mountains, the clouds were dense and heavy, and we suspect the rain much more intense.

After the turnaround we returned to the Kayak Hanalei docks. The paddle down was easier, going with the current, but the scenery was much the same. Along the way (both upstream and down) we had a few animal highlights. Along with numerous fishes, we saw many Nene both flying and walking around. In one Nasturtium grove we saw perhaps a dozen Cattle Egrets, pure white against the lush green of the plants. The best though, were two turtles! Unlike our sightings in the past, these two were freshwater turtles and were small. Upon later research, I believe these were Red-Eared Sliders. One we saw was basking on a log in the center of the river while the other was more secluded on the side. Unfortunately, while they were wonderful to see, they are one of many invasive species on Hawaii.

Our stop for lunch was quick, eating sandwiches and then we got back in a boat and headed downstream towards the ocean. We found that we were either much faster on this route than expected or the maps we were shown were misleading. It felt like it was just a few bends and we’d arrived at the ocean, specifically Hanalei Bay. We beached the kayak and headed out into the waves. This location was super interesting and fun! The waves from the ocean came crashing in while the waves from the river were flowing out. The two moved against each other and made for a wonderfully dynamic set of constantly breaking waves in a variety of directions. The beach was uniformly shallow, just a few feet, for at least 100 yards, and the sand at the bottom was rippled, while most beaches (in my experience) have smooth bottoms. We lounged and bounced in the wave, watching surf lessons being taught for quite a while. But, after maybe 30-40 minutes we got back in our boat and returned to Kayak Hanalei one final time.

With our arms a bit sore, we headed back to the hotel. We put away our gear from the day and the food we’d purchased earlier, got changed, and headed to the pools. We tried out some of a new “reef-safe” sunscreen, and unfortunately, we did not like it one bit. It was a bit like trying to apply glue to your skin… That is not to say all reef-safe sunscreen is bad, but this brand was not our favorite. We each picked up a happy-hour cocktail and headed to the infinity pool and hot tub. On the way there, the skies opened again, and we got to enjoy being submerged in the water, while the sky lightly rained on us. This was how the remainder of our afternoon was spent, moving between the different pools and relaxing as the gentle rains came and went.

Dinner was another round of tacos, and for the first time on this island, we ate inside, deciding we’d had enough of the rain for one day.