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Day 7 (Happy St.Patty's Day!)!
The alarm rang at 6 am (although Mike was already up and about) for an early day. Today, we were doing a catamaran cruise of the Na'Pali Coast. We drove into Port Allen Harbor & had enough extra time that we grabbed a quick breakfast @ McDonald's Drive-Thru.
I decided to take the anti-nausea meds again as the waves were to be high and I have been sick on the "high seas". Mike even took one just to be safe. He's never gotten seasick, but this was to be a 5.5 hour trip, and after paying for it, you'd hate to be ill the whole way through!
We started off, and it was a nice, sunny & windy day. The catamaran was under power (they never did let the sails out - reading reviews, I guess they rarely do). We saw a LOT of whales - some rather close-up. It's the season that the hump back whales are here from Alaska to breed & to have babies. We've been on whale watching tours before when we were in Maui 6 or so years ago, but we got lucky and were very close this time. The closest you are allowed to get is 100 feet from the whales, and I think we were there. They were showing off - diving, slapping their tails, and breaching (jumping) out of the water a lot.
Then we saw flying fish. These were amazing - I wish we had pics, but the pictures wouldn't do them justice. The looked small - less than 6 inches long - but they literally woud FLY out of the ocean swells and flap their fins/wings and sail along in the air for quite a distance before diving in another ocean swell.
Then we saw a "herd" (pod, bunch, group - I don't know) of spinner dolphins. Over 4 dozen at least. They just dove in/out of the water once in a while, one leaps up and spins through the air. That was amazing. I'd never seen dolphins outsuide of a zoo before. They are pretty common for that area, but it was neat to see. Mike got some video of them diving in/out of the water - you can see just how many there are. They are smaller than the bottle-nosed dolphin you are used to seeing in a zoo - about 4-5 feet in length. They were so close, you could see their blow-hole on top of their head, and their eyes. Amazing. Then a bit later we actually saw about a half-dozen bottle nosed dophins! I guess this is somewhat rare, so it was cool to see them ourselves.
By then we were coming up on the Na Pali coast- which we'd seen from the helicopter. I guess by then, there were a number of people holding "aloha" buckets near the back of the boat, and just feeling miserable as they threw up into their bucket. Ewww, I am SO glad I took my Bonine!
The costline was beautiful, and the boat was diving up/down less now because we were out of the wind, on the leeward side of the island. We saw the whole coast line - it's really beautiful. Then we stopped to do some snorkeling. We saw some fish - not a huge amount - but I am comparing it to snorkeling off Molokini Island a few while back, near Maui - and THAT was as if you were in aquarium! Mike & I did see an eel swiveling in/out of the rocks with another fish berating him the whole time- that was pretty neat.
Then back on the boat for a picnic lunch (sandwiches, mac/potao salad & fruit). Now that we were done snorkeling, you could switch your drinks from pop/juice to alcohol, but I opted not too. I was feeling fine, stomach wise, but we still had a wavy trip ahead of us in the full sun, and I didn't want to tempt fate.
The ride back was retracing our steps - mainly just a drive back. There were a NUMBER of people who got sick on the trip - I am so glad Mike and I were not among them. As I got off the boat, I heard one little boy happily say "Daddy - it was BUMPY today!". I turned around after hearing his father answer "Yeah, it was bumpy" and noticed that "Daddy" was the poor guy who was sick the ENTIRE 5.5 hour trip! Oh well, I guess that's good his little boy didn't realize how rotten dad felt!
Back to the resort, and then off to the beach at the resort. I hung out on the grassy area in the shade for the most part. MIke decided to try boogie-boarding, and got the hang of it by the end. We could have kept the board overnight, but since we're hoping to take surfing lessons tomorrow , figured it was just easier to turn it back in. I wanted to do some more snorkeling but the waves were huge (gnarly, even) and so I just opted to bob around in the waves for a while.
Then back to the room. Mike hadn't gotten much sleep that night, so we didn't head out to eat. He fell asleep, and I got to eat all the left-over Thai food - yum.
I just can't get over how we just leave the screen door open the whole time (we're on the 2nd floor, so no one could break in w/o scaling walls). Even if you leave the door standing wide open for a bit, there are may be 12 mosquitos on the whole island, so nothing will swarm in. No snakes either - interesting!
Here are the pics from our day on the cruise - enjoy!
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