Got up at 5:30 this morning to get ready. Had to be checked in at the boat by 7:30. The plan was to take a trip up the Na Pali coast, but the ocean was too rough and instead we stayed on the south end of Kuaui. We saw several humpback whales, many dolphins, turtles, etc., so it was a good trip even though we didn't get to the west coast.
They served breakfast, lunch and drinks on board, so all was good on that end.
The first dolphins we saw were the bottle nosed dolphins, apparently not too common in this area. They spent a lot of time swimming along side the boat, and under it and all around.
The Hawian spinning dolphin were much more common. They had a strange habit of jumping way up high out of the water and spinning about before landing. However, we couldn't get the timing right to get a good picture of that.
More dolphins - this place is lousy with them....
Of course, we had to get our picture taken - again.
What you don't see in this picture is that we had just gotten out of the water from snorkelling. Jean and several others made contact with a Portugese Man Of War, a type of jelly fish. Jean has several marks and bumps on her arm and two long strings of marks on one of her legs and was complaining that it stung quite bad. Many of the others were also in pain.
It could have been worse. The scuba divers went down 30 feet and ran into 2 sharks. Fortunately, the sharks did not know dinner time was coming up, so they left everyone alone.
For more info, click on http://www.aloha.com/~lifeguards/portugue.html and find out how serious they can be. I had heard that applying vinegar was good for jellyfish stings, but it turns out that would have made it worse as they are different from other types of jellyfish.
IMMEDIATE FIRST AID ADVICE:
1. Rinse the area liberally with seawater or fresh water to remove any tentacles stuck to the skin. This can be from a spray bottle or in a beach shower. Do not apply vinegar. A study shows that vinegar in these stings sometimes makes the sting worse. (Portuguese man-of-wars belong to a different family than box jellyfish [Carybdea alata] and therefore must be treated separately.)
2. For severe pain, try applying heat or cold, whichever feels better to the victim.
3. Few Portuguese man-of-war stings in Hawai`i cause life-threatening reactions, but this is always a possibility. Some people are extremely sensitive to the venom; a few have allergic reactions. Consider even the slightest breathing difficulty, or altered level of consciousness, a medical emergency. Call for help and use automatic epinephrine injector if available.
The tallest mountian in the background is the rainiest place on earth. We were apparently lucky to be able to see the top of it today. By the end of the day, it was clouded in again.
This beach was used in the opening scene of Fantasy Island where the boat comes ashore. Not to be confused with the water fall picture where they first see the plane. See yesterday's pictures for that.
The spouting horn from a different view point. Actually, from out in the ocean, you can see many blow holes from old lava tubes and one a little further down the beach was actually much better. However there are no roads to it.
The "Tunnel of Trees heading into Koloa
One disadvantage is the price of gas...but a small price to pay.
Driving around in the car with the top down.
This is us leaving our footprints behind.
At the end of the day, we went back to the condo and checked out just before 6 pm. Had a great dinner in a Hawaian themed restaurant and made it to the airport with 10 mins to spare. Caught a flight to Honolulu, waited until 1:30 am and flew overnight to Vancouver. We made it back to Penticton by noon on March 4th.
While driving around, we checked out some of the other timeshares available from RCI and have three favorites picked out for our next trip, which cannot happen fast enough.
