Too busy to blog

Sorry for the delay. We were out having fun.

Tuesday…We headed to the north shore to visit Anini Beach. This beach has a large outer reef that calms the waters before they hit the shore. The beach was vacant when we came so we got our choice of Kamani Tree to setup camp under. We headed out with our snorkel gear. The water is quite shallow and while this makes it easy to snorkel it keeps the fish size down. We did see a huge lobster but I must have had a hungry grin on my face because he retreated quickly under his rock.

We then headed towards Tunnels Beach and stopped in Hanalei for lunch at Zelo’s Beach House. By the way, every good vacation is simply how you fill your time between meals. We had a good lunch but they ran out of Grasshopper Pie dessert so we brushed the sand from our sandals and left. Off to Tunnels we go. Tunnels has an outer reef much like Anini Beach but the water is much deeper. We saw tons of great fish of all varieties. This was our best snorkeling so far this trip and it was our first turtle experience as well. We took a number of pictures but these were the non-digital variety so we will have to post them once we get them developed.

Dinner on Tuesday was at Lemongrass Restaurant in Kapa’a. What do they serve? Sushi of course among other things. We took our spot at the sushi bar and Jay, our sushi chef, prepared for us the best sushi we have had till now. The restaurant had good food and service and great green tea ice cream. Can we top this? That’s what tomorrow is for!

Wednesday…After another breakfast watching the waves come in from our lanai, we headed out for Waimea Canyon and our first real hike of our trip. At the end of the road there is the Pihea Trail which winds it way along the top of sheer volcanic cliffs covered in a green tropical canopy. While the trail goes a total of 4 miles through the Alakai Swamp, we determined that the trail was too difficult, so we decided to cut our hike short and stop at Pihea Vista. It is probably best because we heard that Kauai was losing many visitors to the aligators in the swamp This also meant that we could return down the mountain for a real lunch instead of gorging ourselves on the granola bars in our backpack. Vacation rule #1, never risk a good lunch by overdoing your activities!

We headed back down the mountain to Waimea for lunch at Pacific Pizza & Deli. Our Supreme Pizza was a winner and we quickly forgot the extreme peril we endured on our hike. Exhausted, we returned to the resort to rest up for dinner. Vacation rule #2, never risk a good dinner by overdoing your activities! What to eat for dinner? Sushi of course! The best chance at topping Lemongrass was a place called Kintaro also in Kapa’a. This place was packed and for good reason! We waited extra long for seats at the sushi bar and were well rewarded. This was the best sushi we have had on the island and the portions were immense! Sorry Jay, it looks like we have a new favorite. The Kilauea Roll and Negi Hamachi Maki Roll were killer! And the fresh and smoked salmon sushi was fantastic! Need anything else be said? But one thing I do have to say, this island needs a good Coke distributor!!! Every restaurant seems to have only Pepsi - and yes there is a difference between Coke and Pepsi!

We have our reservation in at TidePools for Friday with a special request for the private table. We pick up our friends Mark & Cheryl tonight.

More to come…