Kauai: Part 4 - Fern Grotto, Luau, & Boat Tour

We spent the last few days on the island without anything planned.  We drove around to see the sights and took advantage of some last minute ideas.  

There are a couple of big waterfalls on Kauai that can be seen from the road... no hiking involved.  Wailua Falls: 

'Opaeka'a Falls: 

During our scenic drive, we passed through a "tree tunnel." 

We took a riverboat tour down the Wailua River to the Fern Grotto... a beautiful cave where ferns grow from the ceiling.  It was a beautiful river tour, a beautiful walk through the "jungle" and then the locals played the Hawaiian wedding song at the Fern Grotto.  There were hula dancers and we all had to kiss the person beside us at the end.  Really cheesy but also kind of sweet.  

One of the MANY beautiful flowers along the walk to Fern Grotto. 

The Fern Grotto 

More tropical flowers... truly a tropical paradise. 

After the river tour, we went to the Smith Family Luau.  They own a huge garden with beautiful flowers, citrus trees, peacocks and goats.  It was a traditional Hawaiian Luau where the pig was cooked in the ground.  The food was delicious (so were the free Mai Tai's).  And after dinner there is a show.  It was fantastic and it really got us in the "Aloha" spirit.  

It was so neat to learn about the traditions and heritage of Hawaii.  During the show Mike turned to me and asked, "Can we go to Tahiti next?"  Umm.... YES!  I would love to.  Not sure that will happen in this lifetime, but we'll see.  

The next day we spent in the southwest corner of the island.  There is a long beach there called Polihale which is a 17 mile stretch of white sand which meets up with the southernmost part of the Napali coast.  It's a 4.8 mile drive down a bumpy dirt road to get there.  Yep, we took the Camaro!  Needless to say, it had a few new squeaks/rattles when we turned it back into the rental company. 

The view from our spot on the beach: 

One thing about Polihale beach: it's very hot!  Apparently it is consistently the hottest part of the island year round. So, after we were sufficiently hot and sunburned (and hungry), we packed up and headed to Port Allen to have lunch at a local brewery.  

We walked into the brewery and were about to order some local beverages when we noticed lots of people across the street waiting on their boat tour to begin.  We bailed on lunch (even though we were starving) to see if by ANY chance we could make it onto one of the boat tours.  After walking through a couple of the shops, Mike found a company called Blue Dolphin tours that was going to attempt to make it up the NaPali Coast.  

The waves in the winter usually make it impossible to cruise up the coast and the waters lately had been especially rough.  But, our enthusiastic Captain named Chris told us that he was going to attempt it.  He totally talked us into getting on the boat.  

The swells were averaging 7-10 feet.  

I was really nervous that one of us would get sea sick and the trip would be ruined.  

Luckily, neither of us got sea sick and it was one of the best experiences of the entire trip!

It looks calmer than it was.  

A waterfall into the ocean!  Beautiful! 

TOTALLY worth the rough seas.  

The Captain and crew on the Blue Dolphin were ABSOLUTELY amazing!  Lots of people were sea sick and they handled it very well.  Captain Chris took us VERY close to shore along the NaPali coast.  I'm not going to lie, I was pretty nervous.  Waves were breaking BEHIND the boat but, it was totally awesome. 

We saw "The Forbidden Island" of Niihau and Lehua Rock 

(just off to the right side of the picture):

We saw a LOT of humpback whales... and we even got a show from a group of bow-riding spinner dolphins!  

They were amazing!

They play the Titanic theme song while the sun is setting and offer to take pictures of couples on the bow. 

 (Please notice that the ONLY reason my husband willingly participated in the following pictures is because of the beverage in his hand... or maybe it was his Aloha spirit). 

They FORCED every couple to take the next picture or they REFUSED to return your camera:

It was fantastic!!! 

We were served a delicious dinner on our cruise back to port.  It was all traditional Hawaiian food and served with complimentary Mai Tai's.  At this point the seas were calm enough that we could happily stuff our faces (we didn't eat lunch remember) while watching the beautiful sunset. 

After an AWESOME day on the south shore, we had a long drive back to our condo on the north shore and unfortunately, there had been a 3 car accident on the ONLY road that takes you north.  We got stopped in a long line of traffic... we didn't know at the time that it was going to be a 5 HOUR wait.  The road was completely closed and there are no side roads around.  We got home around 2:00 in the morning.  

So, our last day in Hawaii we slept in!  Our flight was leaving at 3:45 in the afternoon so we had some time in the morning to do some of our favorite things before we left.  

We had breakfast on our lanai... finishing up all the fresh fruit we had bought.  We sadly packed up our things and then picked up some Ahi Poke and a Longboard Lager from the grocery store which we happily ate at Anini Beach. 

Ahi Poke is fresh/raw tuna with various sauces or seasonings.  It was DELICIOUS!  We ate this and a bag of steamed edamame as a meal at least 3 times.  

We stopped by to visit the Kilauea Lighthouse. It is a beautiful area. 

For our last stop before the airport, we opted for our other favorite food on the island.  There is this food truck in Kapa'a called "Happy Taco."  It's a stationary food truck with a mother/daughter team who makes the MOST AMAZING mahi-mahi fish tacos.  It's not a place that I would have picked to eat just by looking at it from the street, but the reviews on Yelp were all 5 stars and a lot of locals were eating there.  

Chiken??? 

After our 2nd lunch, we headed to the airport.  It was an amazing vacation.  We saw so many beautiful sights.  The colors of the island are so bright and vibrant... red dirt... green grass... blue ocean... white clouds... black lava rock... and the various colors of the flowers.  We feel very fortunate to have experienced Hawaii.  It's a unique state full of culture and history.  We are so lucky to have such a beautiful state as part of our country.  

It may seem like we did it all, but there are still plenty of other things to do on the island that we didn't take advantage of: ziplining, horseback riding, kayaking, etc.  I haven't been to the other islands of Hawaii, but hopefully another visit to ANY of the islands is somewhere in our future.  

I didn't take many videos along the NaPali Coast because it was so rough, but here is a video of our best whale and dolphin sightings while on the tour (sorry... no HD because it was shot with my camera instead of the GoPro). 

 And I forgot to include one whale video in the compilation...