Day 3- Kauai

Today’s Lesson: Nothing is ever perfect, but sometimes you can get close enough.

Our third island in as many days, and I have to admit, I’m starting to get kind of dizzy. There’s something to be said for those long sea days between ports, with nothing to do but sit around and work your way through a couple dozen books. Of course, there’s also something to be said for actually travelling, as opposed to wrapping yourself in a cocoon of chaperoned security and walking slowly in long lines to wherever the nice man on the loudspeaker has told you to go. Something for everyone, I guess.

Anyway, we got to Kauai today, and I think it’s my favorite island so far. It just looks the way I think a tropical island should—huge green cliffs and funky little stores and pretty, palm-tree lines beaches, no giant walls of high-rise hotels lining the shore. Of course, we didn’t get that right away. One of the problems with travelling on a huge ship is that you have to arrive at the same point as all of the other huge ships, which is to say, a container port. Which, although vital to international commerce, are not exactly scenic wonderlands.

So we got out of there in pretty short order, on the shuttle to the rental car place and then in the rental car out to the northern coast. Along the way, we stopped to rent some snorkle gear and ran in to a woman from Berkeley. What is it with northern Californians around here? The dang things are everywhere.

The drive was, quite frankly, spectacular. Yeah, yeah, enough with the superlatives, you say, we know it’s pretty, why not say something interesting for a change? To which I reply, shut up. This is my vacation and I’m having a good time and I can be happy if I want to, even if it’s not funny.

Right. So the beach we chose was kind of tucked away, down a road with no signs past a lot of rental houses, any one of which I would be very happy to stay in or, possibly, own. But it was still pretty well populated, with bathrooms and a campground and a boat ramp that seemed to be getting a lot of use. Unfortunately, it also had some fairly high winds, strong enough to kick up waves on the pretty little bay and to make snorkling a pointless and somewhat dangerous endeavor (what with the part where you’re getting pushed out to sea and all. So that was out, but it was okay. We found a spot on the beach, in the shade and out of the wind and read and napped and watched a series of people engage in what looked like a completely futile activity, involving a small board and a huge kite, attached to the rider by about a hundred feet of line. We saw several failed attempts, including one guy who flew up out of the water and bounced at least once before landing, but there were several people who seemed to know what they were doing and zipped around all afternoon. All in all, it supplied some good entertainment.

So, sure, what with the wind and having to race back to return the snorkle gear we really didn’t need before the store closed at five, getting stuck behind a dodderingly slow driver and almost not making it, coming back to the boat through the diesel fumes and sounds of large equipment; maybe it wasn’t the perfect day. But it was still pretty darn nice.