Monday, January 21, 2008: Snorkeling and a Luau on Kauai.
Bob: Since we were in a tropical paradise and hadn't yet actually gone into the water, we had decided to book a reef snorkeling tour in the morning followed by a luau excursion in the evening. We were met on the pier by Charley, one of our guides, and after we all squeezed into a van he drove us about 21 miles west along the coast to a small lagoon with an even smaller beach. There we met Paul, our second guide, who outfitted us with a wetsuit, mask, snorkel, and swim fins. I added my snazzy blue Aqua gloves to that ensemble and we eased down to the beach over some rough lava rock. I think that is the rock named "Au Au" by the Hawaiians, and my feet informed me that it was an altogether accurate name! On the beach the fun began. The surf in Hawaii, at least at any of the exposed beaches, is a whole lot higher than in the Caribbean, so getting into and out of the water is trickier. Carrying my fins, I had to kind of back into the waves out just beyond the curl of the surf and then slip on my fins. That process was complicated by having only small patches of sand in between the rocks to stand on, but I finally got the fins on and most of the sand out, and then I was ready to go. |
Monika: We had tickets for a beach snorkeling trip. The tickets said to be on the pier at 7:45. So we prepared everything the evening before and got a wake-up call for 6:30. After getting dressed in swimsuit and outer clothes we went up to the buffet for breakfast. When we saw that the ship had not even come into harbor, we had a leisurely breakfast with some protein (eggbeater omelet for Bob, scrambled eggs and bacon for me). We took pictures of the rugged mountains, the harbor, and the lighthouse leading us into the harbor. We then went downstairs, got our gear and, of course, waited to be let off the ship. (you may notice, that "freestyle" cruising involves a lot of waiting). But finally we got off the ship. It is interesting, that NCL does not have the cruise director staff assemble the groups in a central location and then direct the people to their excursions, but rather each excursion has a place on the pier were they wait for the people. We went to the "snorkeling tour" sign and had to fill out a health form. Bob was already worried, that this was a pass/fail test, but they just collected the papers. There were only 11 of us taking the trip, so we all fit into a van and our guide took us out the beach were we were going to snorkel. |
Bob: Paul led our expedition into the lagoon while Charley followed with a safety surfboard, a foam plastic kind of board rigged with a rope around its perimeter so that anybody who got tired could just hang on the the rope and rest a while. Some members of our party had never been snorkeling before, so they were still getting used to the equipment and spent the whole time hanging onto the board. Charley obligingly towed the board with its attached people in a clockwise around the lagoon after Paul. I was rather oblivious to all that for most of the time because I was absolutely fascinated by the coral formations 5-10 feet below us and all the fish milling about. There was an astonishing variety of fish, and as long as we swam slowly and with little splashing they would just go about their fishy business below us. When someone "swam like a shark", however, with much splashing, the fish disappeared into, under, and away from the coral heads just as Charley had explained to us. So I floated along just giving a kick now and then with the fins or making a breast stroke with my Aqua gloves. But when I had drifted off from the others a bit, some fish became downright curious about me and swam right up to my face. A pair of brightly colored yellow and white ones were particularly friendly. Now they may have just been the "cleaner" fish that scrape algae off of other fish and thought, "Wow, here's a big one that really needs scraping", since I hadn't shaved that morning, but that's just a guess. Anyway, I played with them for a bit before they finally darted off. |
Monika: We got wet-suits, fins, masks, and snorkels. There were two guys running this operation. They made sure everything fit and then took us to the water. One of the guys was out in the water with an 8 foot surfboat, with handholds. It was great for holding onto when putting on our fins. Those, who had never snorkeled were told to hang onto the surfboard and just be towed along. We snorkeled over to a reef and there were an abundance and a variety of fish. The water was extremely clear, and their defogging stuff really worked, so I just followed Paul as he brought stuff up from the bottom and marveled at all the fish. |
Bob: Paul was carefully bringing stuff from the floor of the reef up for us to look at and touch. One was a round, spiky ball that was clearly alive and kind of wriggling, which I think was a spiny sea urchin. Paul had a bent wire hook, and he used that to pry a small octopus from a crevice in the reef. It squirted so much ink around that I really couldn't see it at all for a few moments, but Paul kind of petted it and calmed it down until it stopped squirting ink and I could get a close look at it. The octopus's body was just a little bigger than my fist, and I could see its big bulbous brain, the camouflage kind of pattern of its skin, its big eyes, and that curious jet siphon mouth thing that it could squirt water or ink out of. But I was really fascinated by the eight tentacles about 9-10 inches long, a little thinner than a pencil, and lined with suckers on the underside. To me, one amazing thing was how it was intentionally guiding all of those eight arms at the same time. Since I have trouble coordinating just two arms at times, that feat impressed me. When I slowly reached out my hand to the octopus, it reached out one tentacle and latched on with three of its suckers. That was a curious sensation, but since I was like 200 times the size of the octopus, I figured I could easily pull away, but boy was I wrong! Even with just three suckers, it put an astonishingly strong suction onto my hand and wouldn't let go until Paul, who still had the rest of its body, pulled it away. Very interesting. |
Monika: Once, Paul brought up a little octopus, who was violently throwing out ink, but calmed down so that we could get a good look of the critter. Bob had our waterproof camera from several years ago, and we both are hoping that the pictures he took turned out well. After about 45 minutes in the water, I got a cramp in my leg. I swam back to the board, held on, and with judiciously moving my muscles opposite to the cramp it did go away. But now my mask had water. I tried to clear it, but must have gotten hair into it, because now it was leaking. Luckily we were going back to shore anyway. But it really had been a great time. |
Bob: Getting out of the water after our snorkeling circuit proved to be even more difficult than getting in. My body had accustomed itself to rolling up and down with the waves, and I still was rolling up and down when I tried to stagger back onto the "beach". The net result was I fell down with each of the first couple of steps and wasn't any too steady for a while thereafter. But we stripped off our gear, rinsed off in a fresh water shower, and changed back into our normal clothes for the drive back to the ship. Charley was nice enough to drive us past another beach just up the road a piece where we saw several green sea turtles feeding in a teeny, tiny lagoon. |
Monika: . A second dive was planned to see some sea turtles. But this dive would be a little more strenuous, so one of the guys warned, that only the ones that were ok should go, since on this dive, we would not be able to get back to shore easily. My legs still felt as if they may cramp again and Bob was feeling slightly nauseous, so we two opted out. It turned out that only 3 of the group went ahead. We others just put on dry clothes and sat by the ocean watching the waves come in and out. When everyone was back, we had some snacks before heading back. On the way back, we stopped at a little cove were the turtles came to feed. And indeed, we saw a couple quite clearly in the water. It was fun that we too got to see some of these endangered animals. On our route back to ship, our driver chose a backroad, that took us closer to the mountain. It was fun seeing theses rugged volcanic mountains a little closer. At one point it looked like there was a group of caves up the mountains. |
Bob: The snorkeling had been so exciting that I had not realized how tired I was getting. Once back on the ship I collapsed into bed for the afternoon, finally rousing myself to have a snack and put on some leis for the evening luau. That luau was held in a large framed tent structure out in back of the Tudor style mansion built by the owners of the sugar cane plantation in the old days. We wandered around the very pretty mansion grounds until it was time to dig up the pig. That is, the pig had been cooked since 9 o'clock that morning in an underground pit surrounded by leaves and hot rocks with wood underneath it all doing a slow burn. It was very labor intensive, of course, but the net result was roasted pork so tender that the meat was literally falling off the bones. I had a bit of that and it was very tasty indeed, but the poi I tried (boiled taro root) was pretty much tasteless, roughly the consistency and taste of Elmer's glue, only transparent. (Later, however, at the Polynesian Cultural Center on Oahu I ate raw taro and that had the taste and consistency of sweet potato, albeit with a vivid purple color!) |
Monika: When we reached the ship, we took a quick shower, had lunch and then rested before getting ready for the Luau in the evening. We had purchased tickets for the Luau, since June, the Hawaiian ambassador, had said, that this was one of the more authentic Luaus. The bus took us to an old plantation, where the Luau was happening. We were greeted by Hula girls who leied us with a flower lei for me and a shell lei for Bob. We were wearing our kukui nut leis so everything fit nicely together. After the obligatory picture, we were escorted to our table, after which we could walk around the estate. They had some beautiful flowers and a nice little waterfall. But then it was already time for the ceremony of taking the pig from the imu (i.e. fire pit). Bob watched the show on stage, while I waited by the pit to watch the pig being unwrapped from its leaves. It smelled so good, and was just falling apart. I had the urge to grab a piece of meat, but thought it was probably frowned upon. Our table was the first to go to the buffet. Besides pig, they had teriyaki beef, chicken, rice, a nice salad bar and of course poi. I declined the poi, I had not heard anything good about it, but did enjoy the beef and shredded pork. It was really very, very good. Desert was, surprise, pineapple upside down cake, and some other things. |
Bob: During dinner the dancers performed some solo numbers, but after dinner the main entertainment of the evening began. The story line was a Tahitian princess separated from her lover. He undertakes the arduous journey from Tahiti to Hawaii, and later she does the same, so they are finally reunited and married in Hawaii. It was a simple love story in some ways, but that basic theme was embellished with storms at sea, volcanic eruptions, and other dramatic events. I'm not sure I followed all the details of the story line, but in any case that was partly just a rack to hang some marvelous dancing numbers on. We saw expressive hula dances, which I had expected, but also a "paddling the canoe" dance and even a "fire coming from the volcano" dance, which I definitely had not expected. The guy twirling two flaming batons was particularly good, and other folks seemed to think so too as he got an enthusiastic ovation when he finished his number. But of course, in the end the couple got married and had kids and lived happily ever after in Hawaii, so the story had the requisite happy ending and we returned to our ship for the night. |
Monika: During the meal we had Hula dancing with a men's group and a girl's group. After the meal the show started, which told the story of the Polynesians emigrating to Hawaii . An older guy told the story, of two lovers being separated when he set out for Hawaii. It included a storm that was calmed by a beautiful (obviously ballet trained) goddess. The high point was a fire dance, symbolizing the volcano's eruption. It was quite spectacular, with four very lithe girls dancing with torches and then one guy dancing with one and then two torches. Very, very impressive. After that the women came and the lovers were reunited and had a baby. It really was quite a spectacle. After the show the actors came and posed with anyone with a camera. |
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