Hawaii- Kauai Day 2

 Our second day in Kauai started off great. Our hosts at the bed and breakfast made macadamia nut and blueberry waffles served with a dozen different syrups including pineapple, passion fruit, guava, mango, and coconut. I tried them all, but passion fruit was my favorite. After breakfast, we packed up and left the bed and breakfast. 


The best part of the day was that we finally got to go scuba diving! Diving on the North Side is only done in the summer so we were a week too early (they start the first dives up there in May) so we had to drive down to the south side. Our dive wasn't until the afternoon, but we decided to go up early and go to Poipu Beach. Kauai is Jason's favorite island and this was his fourth trip. He was amazed at how much they have built on Kauai. Poipu used to be a secluded beach that monk seals would come up to rest on. They are chased by sharks in the water constantly and they come to the beach to sleep. But they have built 5-7 new resorts right on the beach front and now the seals rarely come up there any more. I was disappointed not to see one, but got lucky later that afternoon. We laid out on the beach for a while and then went to lunch at Bubba's Burgers, a place Jason liked from his previous stays. Then we met at the dive shop for our afternoon dive. It was so fun being on a boat again; I was giddy.

 Our friends from the bed and breakfast, Jeanette and Ed, were on the dive with us. 

 Our first dive was at Brennekes Ledge. It is known for its beautiful coral and for sharks. Luckily we didn't see any sharks, but I have never seen coral so rich in color. They also had black coral, which is extremely rare. It is a deep dive, and for some reason, my ears didn't handle it well. I have never had problems with my ears or pressure before, but I didn't think I was going to be able to dive because I was in so much pain. I had just decided to go back to the surface when my ears finally popped. It still hurt some, but I was able to dive. I hadn't been diving in 5 years, so it took me a minute, but then everything came back to me. We saw an eel, fish and the coral, it was pretty, but we didn't see anything amazing.

 Our second dive site was at Sheraton Caverns. I really liked this dive. It had lots of lava tubes and caverns that we swam through and I saw 13 sea turtles. They were everywhere. Most of them were sleeping in the caverns. We saw another eel and even an octopus. The octopus was cool because I had never seen one in the ocean before. It kept changing colors, which was awesome. On our way back to the harbor we saw the Spouting Horn, which is a blowhole, and a popular tourist destination. It was cool to see it from the water.

 On drive back to the dive shop, we spotted this monk seal on a little strip of a beach. I made the drive instructor stop. He probably thought I was really lame, but whatever, I am glad because the seal was so cute and I got some good pictures. These poor things are almost extinct. There are fewer than 2,000 left.

 After the dive we got some shave ice. I got pineapple and coconut flavored shave ice with macadamia nut ice cream on the bottom. So good.

 I haven't shown any pictures of the beautiful hibiscus flowers yet so here it is. I saw these while we were eating shave ice. The hibiscus in Hawaii are so colorful. 

After shave ice we went to Kohala where we met up with Ed and Jeanette for dinner. It was great getting to know them better. It was a wonderful day!