Adventure Day 8-2-11

Waiting for the raft

Today was finally the day of our big adventure, we woke up early to drive over to the west side of the island and catch our raft up the Na Pali Coast. We decided to take an expolration boat because there are limited ways to access the Na Pali Coast, no driving, only by expolartion boat, helicopter, or hiking several miles on a very high, 14 inch wide, percarious trail. On our drive  there, we needed breakfast and broke our promise on the way and had McDonalds for breakfast, but it is so hard to find breakfast places here, no one wants to get up that early! Kinda crazy if you ask me since how popular breakfast is at home, but I have yet to find a resturant that does just breakfast or breakfast at all! Everything opens at 5 around here. So after our muffin and OJ, we found Kalikehelo Harbor to meet up with Captain Andy's Na Pali Expedition. After meeting a few of our fellow tourists, two large raft boats rolled into the Harbor. They gave us a quick prep talk and off we went. We thought it would be rough on the water, but not this rough! The waters were like a bucking bronco! After holding on for dear life for an hour, we stopped by a cove to snorkle. It was fantastic! The water was so clear and aqua, lots of cool looking fish and a turtle! I was stoked to see a huge sea turtle, it was just hanging out on the bottom of ocean, about 15 feet deep, it was probably wondering why all these people were bothering him!

You can see private inslands to the West

Snorkle couple!

Eeeekkk!! Big fish hiding! NO idea what it is!!! EEEKKK!!

After snorkling for 40 min, we headed more north up the coast where the water got rougher and rougher. All we had to hold onto was ropes, and luckily they provided gloves because my hands would have been rubbed raw from how tight I was holding the rope. Then we started expolring some caves, which most were pitch black, and one even had a beach inside! One really cool cave had a hole carved in its ceiling from a waterfall that oridinates from the the highest point on the island, which you could see right outside, and the tour guide took us right through the waterfall, it was frezzing!

Some of the random small coves along the way

Almost the the most northern part of the west coast

The waterfall that goes down the side of the mountain to the cave

The whole formed at the ceiling of the cave from the waterfall

As we reached the northern part of the Na Pali Coast, the water was as ferocious as I had ever experienced. I didn't think I could hold on much longer when our tour guide finally turned around. The ride back down the coast was much smoother, and the tour guide said all gentlemen sail downwind and now I know why. We were able to go closer to the beaches and one beach looked like a cove that went into a hidden area. I guess they have filmed many movies in this area like the new Pirates of The Carabiean. And even cooler, the space was high enough they use to have helicopter tours through it. On the other side a little history we learned about a little inlet that only Kings bones could be buried on the side of the mountin. No one was suppose to know where this area of land was, so guards took permanent post their and killed anyone instanly if they accidently came across the land. When a king died, a special warrior was chosen at birth to climb down the side of the mountain and hide the bones. After his task was done, he could either hang there till he died, or fall to his death. In their culture, they thought if anyone knew where their King's bones were buried, they would steal his power from his remains. That is why no one was to know where to bones were. They considered this warrior and his reamining family as future royalty or moved up in the social status. Crazy to think of all the death and bloodshed in that area.

Johny Dept ran through this whole for the Pirates movie!

Kings bones mountain, you can barly see the whole to the left of this pic

Also a little further down, we went into a cove with a rockmound in the middle. Really hard to explain, but if you can stand Mary J Blidge, she does a music video in this really cool cove! So check out Mary J Blige "Everything" video to see the cool cove (I personally muted the music, can't stand her, but the scenery is exactually what we could see!). Also from the sky, airpiolets say it looks like God's eye!

In the "God's eye" cove

Then a little further down, we stopped for lunch at an intact archaeological site. The food was delicious and I am so surprised they were able to pack that much good food and it was hot! After we gourged ourselves, we went on a history walk through an old Hawaiian village. This area had the most succsessfull tribe because when one village would want to take over another tribes area, they would contaminate their most precious source, water. But here, their water came from a well, so it was difficult from outside sources to get to. Then they had the large side of the volcano behind them protecting them from attackers. Their food source came mainly from the ocean in the front, which was protected by the dense coral reef that would damage ships if they did not come up the narrow islet between the reef's. Our tour guide said the last of the tribe left about 100 years ago! And many people currently on the island can trace their ancestors to that tribe. Also something cool, the side of the volcano had an 'X' on it, our tour guide said it was during a break in the volcano itself where lava had seeped through and created it. It happened on two different instances, one forming one slash one way, and the second causing the other way.

Lunch time!

The view from the lunch spot

After the tour, and letting our food digest, we were all done! We left the little cove, and headed back to our cars. Unfortuanltly one of the two engines' on the other tour boat did not work, so they drove a lot slower than us back. but we made it back after 6 hours. It was defiently our highlight of the trip, except we are both super sore from the trip! On the way home we decided to go back to a shopping center for some fish and chips. Not as good as we hoped, but it hit the spot. We were so exhausted, but I wanted to drink my Hawaiin wine in the hottub. Jed unfortuanly got a little burnt, so he was not up for it, and the wine didn't taste very good, so we went to bed.