loveliness.

Live, travel, adventure, bless and don't be sorry.
loveliness.
  • Home
  • about
  • travel
    • Australia
    • Cambodia
    • Canada
    • Indonesia
    • Singapore
    • Mexico
    • Philippines
    • Thailand
    • USA
      • Arizona
      • California
        • Los Angeles
        • San Francisco
      • Hawaii
      • Montana
      • New York
      • Oregon
      • Washington
  • loveliness
  • books
  • favourites
  • Tag: boating

    • na pali coast: kauai

      Posted at 8:27 am by jasminedesirees, on August 20, 2015

      On our last full day on Kauai (we flew out later that evening) we did the Holo Holo Na Pali coast boat tour. There are a few different options, but we ended up picking that tour because we would get to go over to Ni’ihau.

      Ni’ihau is another Hawaiian island, it’s called the Forbidden Island because nobody outside of the people who live there are allowed to go. You need a special written invitation to visit, and it’s very hard to get one.

      na pali coast kauai

      na pali coast kauai

      na pali coast kauai

      The Holo Holo tour doesn’t land on Ni’ihau, but it does take you on a cruise around the island, and then stops for snorkeling at the crater just off the coast. The crater is supposed to be amazing to snorkel because the water is very clear, and it’s a sheltered area so there is great visibility and lots of fish.

      The tour leaves from the South side of the island, and at 7:45 am so we had to leave our place at 6:30 to get there on time. We arrived a little early and milled around a bit. After check in and a speech from our captain, we were off. There were about 40 of us on the boat, but it was plenty big enough, at least at first.

      na pali coast kauai

      na pali coast kauai

      na pali coast kauai

      na pali coast kauai

      It wasn’t the nicest day, it was actually kind of cloudy and windy, but the weather was quickly forgotten once we pulled out of the harbour and encountered a pod of wild Spinner dolphins. The ride to the start of the Na Pali coast was about an hour, and they chased the boat the whole way. By the time we were almost there, it was getting pretty windy, and everyone at the front of the boat was getting drenched from huge waves coming over the front.

      na pali coast kauai

      na pali coast kauai

      My sister and I decided to embrace it, and went to the front to get soaked and ride out the bumps. It was really fun for awhile, but eventually one of the deckhands came to get us off the front, because the waves were getting huge and apparently we were in danger of getting catapulted off the front.

      That’s when things started to get a little weird. Everyone was clustered inside or at the back of the boat to try to stay warm and dry, but then people started to get sea sick from the waves. By the time we got to the coast, about 1/4 of the people on the boat were sick. I was seasick one time on a ferry in Cozumel, when I was about 13, and it was scarring enough that I am pretty much religious about taking Gravol before going on a boat on the ocean.

      na pali coast kauai

      na pali coast kauai

      na pali coast kauai

      Once we got to the coast we were sheltered a little bit, and we slowed down to enjoy the view (it was gorgeous), so most people started to feel better. The sun came out, and we had a delicious lunch. Unfortunately, the captain had told us at the beginning of the day that because of the wind he would make a call later about whether or not we’d be making the journey across to Ni’ihau, and I was pretty devastated when he decided we couldn’t go because too many people were sick.

      na pali coast kauai

      na pali coast kauai

      na pali coast kauai

      But we made the best of it and cruised back down the coast, and the boat stopped for snorkeling in a little cove on Kauai instead. We didn’t end up getting in because the water was super murky, and there had been shark sightings in the area, and based on what we’d learned about sharks a few days earlier, I felt like drinking beer on the boat was the better option.

      na pali coast kauai

      na pali coast kauai

      na pali coast kauai

      The day was basically saved for me by the crew, they were a group of local Kauai guys, and we spent the day hanging out with them, and hearing all their crazy stories about their families and life on Kauai. One of their mothers had broken into their ex-girlfriend’s house and threatened her with a knife for trying to take his kid to live on the mainland.

      Kauai is so small, and everybody knows everybody else, so there were definitely some interesting tales.We ended up having a blast with them, and they let us sneak into the beer/wine stash a little early since we weren’t getting in the water.

      na pali coast kauai

      na pali coast kauai

      Overall the tour itself was great, we just had bad luck with weather and with people who hadn’t been out on a boat before and didn’t know to take precautions against seasickness.

      na pali coast kauai

      na pali coast kauai

      If you are going to do this tour, book it as soon as you can on your trip. When we arrived in the morning they gave everyone the option of waiting and going on a different day when the weather was better, but it was our last day so we couldn’t.

      If you book it on your second or third day, you can reschedule if it’s miserable, because you will enjoy it 10x more if the weather is nice.

      na pali coast kauai

      Posted in Hawaii, travel, USA | 0 Comments | Tagged boating, Hawaii, kauai, Na Pali Coast, niihau, travel
    • whitehaven beach: whitsundays

      Posted at 8:00 am by jasminedesirees, on October 22, 2014

      The day we visited Whitehaven beach was probably one of the best ones I’ve ever had. There really isn’t anything I can say to describe Whitehaven, you just really need to go and see it for yourself.

      DSC_2788

      DSC_2789

      Our boat captain set us free for a few hours to explore, but warned us against trying to walk all the way down the beach, because it’s seven kilometers to the end and lots of times people try it and miss their ride back.

      DSC_2793

      DSC_2795

      The sand on the beach is exactly the consistency of brown sugar. I spent about ten minutes taking close up photos of the sand so I wouldn’t forget. It didn’t taste like brown sugar though. I’m assuming…I obviously didn’t lick it just to be sure.

      DSC_2797

      DSC_2807

      We ate lunch at a little picnic area back in the trees, and it was really nice, except for the monitor lizards creeping around everywhere. They have been living there for so long, and seen so many people come through that they aren’t afraid anymore, and they will literally crawl over your feet hoping you’ll drop some food for them.

      At least 3 times I turned around to find one directly behind me. Luckily I was too terrified of them to take a step backwards without checking first, otherwise I would definitely have lost a toe. It didn’t help that we had just been to Indonesia, and these little guys looked exactly like baby Komodo dragons.

      DSC_2813

      DSC_2821

      There were also a few snakes around, one in particular would not be deflected and kept trying to crawl up the table legs while we were eating. The boys thought this was quite entertaining, but me and the other girl at the table were not very amused and ended up standing on top of our chairs to finish our meal.

      After lunch we wandered off into the trees, there are a few different walking trails that take you to different places around the island. The one we followed was only about ten minutes of walking before we arrived at an amazing lookout point.

      DSC_2824

      whitehaven beach

      DSC_2837

      Eventually we tore ourselves away and went back down to the beach to walk as far as we could before it was time to go. We only had about 3 hours on Whitehaven beach, but I loved every second of it.

      It’s kind of crazy that places that beautiful even exist in real life, and it’s even crazier to think that I got to see it for myself.

      DSC_2840

      DSC_2847

      Posted in Australia, beach, travel | 1 Comment | Tagged Australia, beaches, boating, travel, whitehaven, Whitsundays
    •        
    • Follow loveliness. on WordPress.com
    • Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

    • Popular Posts

      • loveliness
      • hiking mount batur
      • whitehaven beach: whitsundays
      • eat all the things- nyc edition
      • diving yo-257: hawaii
      • orange county
      • half dome: part 2 (the climb)
      • guide to phoenix area: restaurants
    • Recent Posts

      • half dome: part 2 (the climb)
      • half dome: part 1 (before)
      • favourites
      • queretaro
      • white sands
      • orange county
      • life update
      • news21
      • land’s end
      • big sur
    • Instagram

      No Instagram images were found.

    • Categories

    • Archives

Blog at WordPress.com.

Cancel

 
Loading Comments...
Comment
    ×