Summer vacation 2018: Part 1, Kauai, Hawaii

Overlook of Allerton house from the bus at Allerton Garden, Koloa, HI

Hawaii is a fairly popular vacation spot for Alaskans. While most people would go there during the winter to escape the cold, we decided to leave the pleasant and beautiful Alaskan summer behind, and visit Kauai, Hawaii. Well, we were also planning to visit Japan, so it was a nice middle point to break the long trans-pacific flight from Seattle to Japan. This was the first time visiting Hawaii for all of us, so I wasn't sure what to expect, but it was fun. For an Alaska-grown kid, who can't sweat much, it could have been a bit hot, but he had a blast, and eating lots of shaved ice kept him cooler.

After the early morning flight to Seattle, we had a half day there before the next flight to Kauai. So we took Seattle Link Light Rail to Pike Place Market area. Taiga likes to see different kinds of fish sold in the market. We ate local oysters at Emmett Watson's Oyster Bar, located around Pike Place Market. Taiga wasn't too keen on the raw oyster, but he tried at least one, but I guess he filled up with ice cream and a cupcake from Cupcake Royale, a couple fancy chocolates from Chocolate Box, and a macaroon from Le Panier.

After 6 hours of flight to Lihue airport, we arrived at Kauai island pretty late. Humid, hot air was waiting for us, but it wasn't too bad since it was breezy. We met with Diana's parents who flew from Florida, and drove to the fancy resort, Waipouli Beach Resort, only a short drive from the airport. It is a nice place for kids, the resort is right next to the beach although you have to be careful for swimming since the beach is fairly exposed with fair amount of waves. Taiga wasn't ready for swimming there, but he enjoyed swimming daily in the nice pool with shallow, beach-like pool, water-slide, and sections which go through the tropical garden.

The building we stayed.

A Koi (carp) pond near the front desk of the resort. Taiga immediately started to catch mosquitofish by hands, and he started to use bread crumbs to catch lots of them later. They were released safely.

It wasn't difficult to figure out what Taiga wanted to do most in Hawaii. Before the trip, Taiga has been watching YouTube videos to learn about fishing methods in Hawaii. Since most place has coral reefs, you need some special ways of fishing; whipping (basically the Carolina rig) and bobber rigs. In Kauai, it was not too easy to find a calm beach, protected from big waves. We fished at the jetty of the resort every day, usually right after breakfast. We frequently got splashed, but it wasn't too bad. With whipping, we lost the hooks quickly after a couple casts; with 8Lb line, the line broke easily from the sharp corals when the hook got snagged. So we changed to the bobber rig, basically a big wood casting bobber with swivels and I tied 3-4 feet of 8lb leader and a small hook (around size 6). We used cut-up squids from a grocery store for the baits. We didn't catch anything for the first 3 days. We could see small colorful fish between the rocks of the jetty, and they come to poke our baits, but we could never hook them. I was almost giving up, but Taiga kept trying and he really wanted to catch them. We decided to use a smaller hook and attached a split-shot close to the hook. Then we dropped the bait close to the jetty. And we finally started to catch fish in the fourth day! It turned out that a little bit of weight close to the hook made the bait more stable against the movement by wave. Taiga caught 3 different species out of 4 fish he caught that day. This is quite different from Alaskan fishing where we usually can expect the species we catch. They were all small (and we safely released them), but meetings with those beautiful fish were precious. Taiga and I had a great time.

Saddle wrasse (Thalassoma duperrey)

Hawaiian Gregory (Stegastes marginatus)

Peppered Squirrelfish (Sargocentron punctatissimum). I got poked by the spiny gill cover.

Stocky Hawkfish (Cirrhitus pinnulatus).

A baby moray eel. Possibly Yellow Margin Moray Eel (Gymnothorax flavimarginatus)? We thought that we hooked the ground. So we left it for a while, in case the wave might unhook it. But I realized that the line was moving and went deeper. We managed to pull it out, but it started to do the twist-action, and the fish got completely tangled by the line. So we had to cut the line to rescue the eel.

During the daily morning fishing, we got to watch this cute Monk seal, playing around the beach right next to the jotty.

While we weren't fishing, or swimming in the pool, we did a couple other things, too.

We experienced the tropic flora and fauna through hiking. We climbed up Nounou (Sleeping Giant) Mountains. We started from Lokelani Rd. trailhead onto Nounou West Trail. Although it is sad to see that many creatures/plants there are completely screwed up due to introductions by human, the forest is completely different from boreal forest which we are accustomed to in Alaska. For example, tt was cool to see Norfork pine (Araucaria heterophylla) forest; we have a tiny tree of this species in our living room, and I couldn't imagine how big it can become.

The guided tour of Allerton Garden, Koloa, HI was fun for Taiga, too. Many plants there aren't native, but it is a cool garden to explore. Below, Taiga is climbing on the roots of giant Moreton Bay figs (Ficus macrophylla). This garden was used to film Jurassic Park, and this is exactly the place where they found the eggs in the film.

The following video is the view from Waimea Canyon lookout (sorry for the wind noise). Although it was spectacular, the drive was on long, winding road (Taiga and I got mild car sickness on the way back). The guy next to us found goats, but it took a long time for us to find them. We kept going until the end of the road for another look-out. But it was covered by cloud, and we couldn't see anything.

We rented bicycles from Hele On Kauai Bike Rentals, and went for a ride on Kauai Multiuse Path (Ke Ala Hele Makalae Path). Beautiful bike path. It was windy, but hot, and it was very tough for Taiga by the end since kids grown up in Alaska don't have enough sweat glands. I had to motivate him by yummy shave ice waiting for us.

Taiga isn't a good swimmer yet, and he was a bit scared of snorkeling. We practiced quite a bit at the resort pool, and he was getting better at using the mask, snorkel and fins. Then we went to practice snorkeling at Lydgate Park Pools. It is completely enclosed by artificial rock piles, so there is no wave, and it is shallow. There are many people, and the water was not clear at all. But I could see quite a few creatures. After Taiga found creatures, he was unconsciously snorkeling for a long time. But after he got tired and drank salty water, he decided that he couldn't do snorkeling. Later in the week, we went to a nice tide pool area, slightly east of Anini Beach area. This was a much nicer beach for snorkeling. The water was crystal clear, and there were so many beautiful fish, including a large Cornet fish. I was looking forward to take underwater photography with my Olympus TG-3, but the battery wasn't charged enough... So I don't have photos, but it was the best part of the Kauai trip. Unfortunately, Taiga wasn't in the mood of snorkeling, and he refused to do it.

The Kilauea Lighthouse and Wildlife refuge is the place where several species of oceanic birds breed. We saw Red-Footed Booby, White-tailed Tropicbiard, Red-tailed Tropicbird, Great Frigatebird, and Hawaiian Goose (Nene) there. After we talked that Great Frigatebirds steal eggs of other species,; Taiga saw a Great Frigatebird flying close to him and dropping an egg. He reported it to the ranger, and she said that it could be an egg of Shearwater. It was pretty stinky.

Great Frigatebird

We also visited Kauai's Hindu Monastery - Saiva Siddhanta Church Headquarters. Taiga was primarily focused on catching Green Anoles.

Wherever we go, Taiga enjoyed catching all kinds of creatures.

Gold Dust Day Gecko Phelsuma laticauda, in the greenhouse at Allerton Garden, Koloa, HI

We had fun Tide-pooling, too.

He caught all of these creatures by a drinking cup or a broken pieces of coconut cup. It was the last day, and we had already shipped his net back to Alaska.

We wanted to have local food, so we went to Koloa Fish Market, which was recommended by a bus driver of Allerton Garden. Poke was super yummy. I'm not completely sure what the definition of Poke is. In the photo below, there are 3 different types of Poke on rice. The flavors are completely different. Many of them contains raw fish, but some of them contain cooked fish. My guess is that poke is a cold dish with fish. They were all great, and we wish we had eaten more local food.

Koloa Fish Market

3 kinds of poke on rice.

Taiga found a drummer guy selling coconuts along the road, and he really wanted to ry it. He quickly husked the coconut, and prepared this coconut water.