Port 09 Nawiliwili, Kauai, Hawaii

One more Aloha!

On Jan 18th we arrived at Kauai. Coming in to the Lihue port at Nawiliwili the sun was rising. A few minutes later the sky’s colors popped! This is probably my favorite part of coming into a port – you never know what the sun will show you, but if you wait long enough it will always be beautiful!

We actually have a tour today! Surprise!

We are on the Wailua River Cruise and Fern Grotto tour.  We get to board a bus with thirty of our almost best friends for the 20 minute ride to the riverboat docks.

The riverboats were designed specifically for use on this river. They are wide and shallow draft, with special motors that are super quiet! We are on the “Ronnie T” which is the boat behind the red roof.

Wailua river boats

The boats have lots of bench space! We had another tour group join us. So the two ladies in blue polo shirts are our escorts for each tour group from the ship – I believe this is Andrea on the left and Inna on the right. The Desitnations team are about the only crew who get to go ashore right now. No else from the ship’s crew is allowed ashore until further notice.

We had live music! These ladies – Mahaeileni played an 8-string ukelele on the left, and Pe’eleni plays a regular ukelele on th right and did most of the singing. She has a beautiful vibrato voice!  Our boat was driven by Captain Kaipo, and he was assisted by “Cousin” Onkai.

Marina was the hula dancer on board. She did two dances for us, then danced at the fern grotto – more on that later!

There are grass huts along the river that Captain Kaipo later tells us can be rented as vacation spots along the river. Remember this – we’ll look for this again later!

We arrived at the fern grotto after about 20 minutes of cruising down the Wailua River. The Captain honked his horn whenever a kayak or canoe was in the middle of the river. They all quickly moved out of our way!

And we are now at the Wailua River Fern Grotto park! We receive an official greeting by one of the local roosters who is not camera shy.

We were told stories of the original access to the Fern Grotto by people who had been here before – it used to be a mud path, then a gravel path. Now it is nicely paved.

We arrive at a nice platform from which to observe the Grotto and surrounding area. The hanging ferns are Boston ferns as we know them.

Weddings were performed in the Grotto, from ancient island weddings to Hollywood celebrities in the 1960’s to 1980’s. They had to follow a dirty gravel path to get up to the Grotto, though.

We were told by others you used to be able to walk all of the way into the mouth of the Grotto.  But Hurricane Iniki wiped out most of the vegetation around the Grotto.  It is still coming back. But the platform was installed to protect the vegetation, and now weddings are performed on the platform.

While we enjoyed the views around us, our entertainers played, sang and danced the Hawaiian Wedding Song. As I mentions earlier, Marina did another lovely dance for us! And all of the couples were asked to kiss each other at the end of the song.  Nice (despite the masks)!

On our way back to the riverboat we take time to enjoy to abundant flora of this valley. The red ginger are beautiful! It helps that we had a heavy rain early this morning before the sun came up!

And these plants are big! Adding people to the scene gives you a better sense of scale.

We also saw a sample of heliconia. This one is all yellow.

And one bush of red ginger has tightly packed blooms. We learned this is a costus ginger. The blooms look like candy!

On the ride back from the Fern Grotto Mahaeileni drove the riverboat while Captain Kaipo talked to us about the Wailua River, the Hawaiian gods Lono and Pele, and other folklore surrounding the island of Kauai.  At the end of the riverboat tour the bus driver took us on a little driving tour as we headed back to the ship.

The rocky site below is a ceremonial sacrificial site used to sort out royal children. A child born of royalty is left in the nook of the rock, up and left of the placard on the stone, for three days and nights.  If the infant is bothered, attacked, or hauled off by the rodents, then it wasn’t fit to be royalty. If the child is left alone then it will ascend into royalty. There was another rock formation used for human sacrifice – Willie, the bus driver, forgot to stop for a photo op, but he told us it exists. Early Hawaiian life was not as simple as it seems it should have been.  Have you seen the movie “Hawaii” with Julie Andrews, Max Von Sidow, and Richard Harris? It’s amazing how much Hawaiian folklore and practices are captured in this movie.

We stopped at an overlook for the Opaekaa Falls, and also an overlook for the Wailua River.

Remember the grass hut I showed you along the river? Wille said the grass huts are visible from here. I can’t find them. Can you?

By the way, this is Willie!

We stopped at an overlook for a famous scene. Did you see the original “Jurassic Park”? Do you remember the scene when Alan Grant the two kids were running in the field when the dinosaurs were running from the T Rex? This is the field used in that scene.

Now, back on the ship, we watch the mooring lines being released as the ship gets ready to sail away.

We kindly say goodbye to Kauai as the sun sets behind the island. Joy and I have had two major vacations on Kauai using our timeshare weeks with Marriott and Interval International, as well as a bed and breakfast rental in the mountains near Kapa’a with stunning waterfall views – 7 falls at my last recollection.

Near the harbor is Lihue Marriott Kauai Beach Resort. It has grown considerably since our last visit, but the main buildings are still there.

Finally, as we leave Kauai the sun drops and leaves us with a colorful sky. A fitting end to a day that begans with similar colors!

Once again, we bid you aloha. Next is our second visit to Maui.