Kauai – Friday

Another great day in a great place…

Again, we slept in this morning…for me, that meant up at 7 a.m…I just can’t sleep here!!! Oh well! After breakfast we headed out to the golf course. I can’t remember the name of it and I don’t have enough energy right now to go find the book that has the name of it in it!! It was a pretty cool little course. This story is that this man living in Kauai built this nine hole course (in Poipu) and then when he died, he donated the course and money to keep it up to the island. This dude is buried in this little garden between 6 and 7. So, since it is donated, the greens fees are only $8!!! That’s my kind of greens fee. Ok, so it wasn’t the Princeville course but it was still fun. There were awesome ocean views all through the course and the fairways are wide and strait…unfortunately, not wide enough for me most of the day!! You may be asking…what did Christy do while you played golf? This is the really cool part of the story. Christy knew that the last time we were here, one of my favorite times was when I got to play one of the other courses here in Kauai. She had told me before we came that I could go play one afternoon if I wanted to but I told her that I didn’t want to without her (plus, I needed someone that could actually see my ball for me!). So…before we left Amarillo, Christy arranged a 30 minute golf lesson with one of our friends from church…nothing big…just teaching her how to hit the ball. (You can see her form below!) She did this just so I could enjoy and round of golf…with her. Pretty awesome wife huh!!! She did great too!! She didn’t hit the ball real far or up in the air but it was always strait! We had a lot of fun playing. We also got lucky that we got paired in a foursome with a couple that was worse than us!!! They were a lot of fun too!

I’ve now played two golf courses in Kauai…one more than I’ve played in Amarillo!

View from the golf course.

Check out this swing!!
And this form!

After golf and lunch at Brick Oven Pizza (again!!), we headed up to the North Shore to another beach we hadn’t visited yet. This was another very cool place. You can only get to this beach by taking this path between a parking lot and a tennis court at the Princeville Resort and following it down to some rickety stairs to another STEEP path and finally to this very cool secluded beach. There is no way you are going to find this beach unless you read about it in a book like ours or someone gives you directions…I think that’s one of the things I loved about it. It wasn’t a beach that everyone goes too….you have to know it’s there to get to it. The sand part of this beach is only 100-150 yards long and has huge trees for shade just 20 yards from the water. On each end of the sand is outcroppings of lava rocks….it’s just a beautiful place. Oh yeah…it’s called “Hideaway Beach”. And the sand here was awesome…very big grains of sand but very soft to walk on. The reason we went to this beach was because the book said it was great for snorkeling…and the book was right. We spent a few hours here snorkeling and relaxing. The snorkeling was incredible…there were huge rock formations that started about 30 yards from shore and went as far as we dared to go out. Lot’s of coral, lots of color and lots of beautiful fish. Just incredible fish. We took some underwater pictures here that we will have to get developed when we get home. At one point I got about 250 yards from shore and found my self in the middle of a school of fish. They were on every side of me…beautiful. At one point while I was out there, I stopped and stood on a big rock where my head was barely sticking up above the water. Christy was back at the shore but I couldn’t see her…that’s how far away I was. She said she couldn’t see me out there either. So I just stood out there on the rock for a few minutes…very humbling…when you are out there in the ocean…big cliffs in front of you, hundreds of miles of ocean behind you, you begin to get a glimpse of how small you are. It was cool….I don’t even know how to communicate how cool it was.

Here are some pics from Hideaway Beach:

From the hike on the way down

From the beach.

Christy, after the shark attack!!

After the LONG trek back up the trail to the car, we headed in to Hanalei to pick up some more souvenirs for the kids and to get some more Shave Ice. Ok, it was good, but the Shave Ice at Jojos is SO MUCH BETTER.

After Shave Ice we headed to the Hanalei Bay Pier to watch sunset. Beautiful is the word we use but it doesn’t do it justice. This was a cool beach…the sand at this beach was the opposite from the sand just a few miles South at Hideaway…it was so fine…like powder. There were several people fishing at this Beach too…with nets or poles. I still haven’t seen anyone catch anything. It was also cool here because you could drive your car right up to the water. Several had backed there cars or trucks up to within feet of the shore to picnic or fish or surf or whatever.

Like I said…the sunset was just incredible…the pictures turned out pretty good on these too.

Hanalei Bay

Locals backed up to the water.

Sunset at Hanalei. Nice huh?

Another great day!!! God is so good to me…this scenery, the beauty, and the reason I have taken this trip…my wife. I remember 16 years ago being here and being “so in love”…and I was. I loved her then…but today, I love her even more. Thank you God…You have been good to me.