From Rocky Start to Sandy Beach

Another day – another morning – another breakfast. After some change with schedules and plans over the weekend it seemed time to return to the hotel breakfast for simplicity. I once more had the buffet and Archer the Chorizador (it is simply their best item). After breakfast we made lunches for the day, prepped bags for beaching and snorkeling, and spent some time tidying so that we’d have slightly less packing work to do soon.

If that intro did not give away our plans for the day, we’d hoped to take things mostly easy – visit some sandy beaches, snorkel with the fishes, and lounge around in the sun with our books and sandwiches. There were two beaches we were considering; Wyllie’s Beach, which is walkable from our hotel, and Anini Beach, which required a drive but was one of the recommended locations for snorkeling.

We decided to begin with Wyllie’s Beach as it was local, and it seemed like if it was a good beach it’d be the easiest option. While the walk was short, only a few hundred feet, we did not realize just how large a descent we had to make. The path was incredibly steep, wet, and covered in leaves and mud making it quite slippery. When we finally arrived at the beach, at first glance there was little sand, or even a sunny spot to place our stuff. That issue was easily resolved however, as we simply had to step out from the low hanging tree, but the sand was still not particularly soft. But we were here and thought we’d give it an honest try. We put on our snorkels and headed out into the water. Unfortunately, this was just as disappointing as the sand. The water was a bit murky and the fish were sparse. We felt fortunate to see a few scattered Humuhumunkunkuapua’a and maybe a handful of other fish, but nothing that inspired us to continue swimming here. Frustrated, we headed back to the beach and decided to make our way to Anini Beach instead.

After the climb back up the hill we got in our car and headed east along the coast towards Anini. Like so many drives on this island, appearances on a map can be deceiving. We had to drive significantly past Anini Beach, before turning closer to the coast and doubling back. Then, by the time we’d arrived, the sky opened into some of the hardest rain we’d experienced since our arrival in Hawaii. We felt lucky when after a few minutes of debating our options, the clouds parted and made way for what then remained to be a gorgeous afternoon.

Anini Beach was more of what we’d hoped for. The sand was smooth and warm, with just enough room so we never felt threatened by the lapping waves. We set up a spot for our stuff, snorkel-suited up, and plunged back into the ocean. Compared to Wyllie’s Beach the differences were night and day. The coral here was alive and abundant (relatively) and there were frequent ridges and ravines formed by volcanic rock. We found we could swim VERY far out from the shore and it remained shallow enough to barely stand, and we found the underwater terrain constant regardless of the direction we moved. We spent the next hour or so zigging and zagging around the shallows, sometimes diving, sometimes flailing to get the others attention to share finds. We saw many things we’d previously seen in our snorkeling: Picasso Triggerfish, Humuhumunukunukuapua’a, a variety of small yellow fish and other small black fish. Some medium highlights from this outing included a school of fish that looked black from the front, but their scales reflected white from the back, an Angelfish, a very long Trumpet Fish, some sea cucumbers, and a handful of black or purple urchins. The most exciting finds though were a flounder, shuffling its way along the seabed trying to hide, and a huge puffer fish (I think either a "Longspine" or a "Giant"), tucked away under a rocky ledge. It was way larger than I thought it would be!

At some point our facemasks began to hurt, so we swam to shore, and after simply sitting in the waves for a bit we got out and dried off. We ate our lunch of sandwiches – steak, cheese, chipotle mayo, etc – and re-sunscreened. We each grabbed a book and lay out in the sun for good duration.

Unsurprisingly if you know us, I was ready to head in from the beach before Archer, and I am grateful that she was on board when I was ready. Being mid-afternoon we headed back to the hotel. Still in the mood to relax in the sun, we headed out to the pools. A quick rinse was refreshing to remove the sandy grit and the sticky salt, but then came another stretch of laying in the sun reading. After another dip in the pools I headed inside to do a bit more cleaning and Archer soon joined me. After we’d both showered we decided to head out for dinner to celebrate our time on Kaua’i. We drove into Hanalei, looking for something nice – but easy. After parking, we realized that we were right next to where we’d rented our snorkel gear and it was in the trunk – thus saving us a trip in the morning.

We ate across the street at Kalypso, which was the recommended location from the cashier we’d just met with. The restaurant was a classic tavern-type setting. I had their house Mai-Tai and Archer had a Gin-Passionfruit-Lemonade type thing. For dinner we decided to share an order of their Poke Bowl and Macho Nachos with Kalua Pork. The Poke Bowl was good – nothing too exciting – but exactly what we’d hoped it would be. Meanwhile the nachos too were exactly what we’d expected, and far more than we needed. These nachos were above average, I would say, and I commend them for having a great ratio of “stuff” to chips. So many nachos end with just a pile of plain chips but not these. We had leftovers – which was not a surprise at all, and we boxed it up for lunch on the road tomorrow.

For the first time this trip, we drove home in the true dark and called it a night, one last time.