Last day on the island! How fast had the time flown but had a lot of fun doing so many things. :)

Did some AM snorkeling – had hoped to see some turtles on the final day of snorkeling but no such luck. :( Got some ahi poke for lunch and it was pretty disgusting how the mosquitoes were attracted to it. Gross.

Next was visiting the Allerton gardens – expensive but very highly rated in things to do. Figured I would like the photo ops do bit the bullet and went. :)

Native plant garden

A bee munching on some starfruit

Little stream to the garden

Tranquil Buddha

They had these huge beautiful trees, apparently they were in Jurassic park. They reminded me of ents in Lord of the Rings!

They had a small fruit orchard which was planted as a victory garden back in the day

Beautiful yellow flower

Spikey, thorny

Small little light green leaves

Flower at the end of a spikey plant.

Then for the last meal we went to a place that had this beautiful orchid garden with these plants with stems full of orchid blossoms!

It also had a small garden of succulent plants.

A water lily

Pretty pink

Then time for a drink (cucumber mojito) and dinner…

and too soon it was time to get back on the plane and go home. One nice thing about the Sheraton was they had hospitality rooms where you could have the room for 30 min – quickly shower and clean up before you left if your flight was later in the day.

It was a great trip filled with doing a lot of the stuff I love to do and a wonderful, wonderful break from being at the hospital and being a lowly intern! :)

This day was a little more relaxing, got snorkeling gear and did a little bit of snorkeling in the morning. Lots of fish right at shore and always fun to see all the colors and varieties of fish! There was also a monk seal taking a nap at the beach. They are endangered so you can’t get too close.

There’s this famous shrimp truck that has very good shrimp – I don’t like shrimp, but it smelled so good and reportedly was excellent!

Did the more touristy stuff, visited a coffee company, Kauai kookie kompany, and Kauai chocolate company

Did some more snorkeling at the Sheraton beach – the snorkeling wasn’t great but the water was so nice and warm. :)

Had a fantastic dinner but the whole vibe at the place was a little off. It was like when you know something’s off is going on but can’t figure out what exactly it is.


Ahi poke (raw tuna) with cucumber, avacado, etc, panko breaded calamari, grilled fish with risotto, and mango cheesecake. :)

The next day started with ziplining. I don’t exactly why I decided to do this but it was in the guidebook so figured I should give it a good try. Basically you get in this harness thing and are clipped onto a steel wire and off you go!

You can see the wire and then the landing post in the trees. They always have you clipped to the tree, the bridge, the zip line so it’s actually safer than it feels like.

All clipped to the tree

Zipping away – it was really fun and a great rush. :)

There were also these bridges too and I’m not sure I really liked that part. I kind of just wish they’d pull me along because I took a long time because I’m scared!! I would have liked more zip lines less bridges!

Here’s me zipping along, imagine a weeeeeeee!

Overall though I would recommend it and I had a fun time, especially once I did the first zip and discovered what fun it is!!!

Tree tunnel on the way to Kaloa

Random stop at a beach

Sprouting horn

Had a puka dog for lunch. I’m not sure how these things came about, but they are a piece of bread with a hole for a hot dog or a veggie dog. You add in a lemon garlic sauce along with a fruit relish – I tried both the starfruit and pineapple. I love hot dogs and it was very good although gives quite a bit of reflux! I think it might sound gross but try it before you denounce it! :)

Then came the nice touristy boat ride. I had read that this was a wonderful way to see the NaPali coastline – and was excited since by the helicopter it looked amazing. Unfortunately the surf was too rough so would be heading south instead. I get seasick pretty easily as I discovered in the Galapagos, so in the end better for me. I had some meds before the ride, and then some during but managed to feel good for most of the ride. :) We also saw some whales but I had the wrong type of lens – no close up lens – so they are mainly just whale dots in the pictures.

Pretty views of the island along the way. It did remind me of lost and I expected to see a four toed statue along the way!!

A whale a whale!!!

Can you spot the whale dots?

I think I posted this one before but a beautiful sunset to end the day :)

I’m sorry I haven’t posted this earlier. I take the final step of the general boards on Thurs (there are always more exams though) and since they cover all areas of medicine I have been busy relearning all that other stuff outside of obgyn that I had long forgotten! The boards always covered weird subjects too so it’s always fun to vaguely recall the terms but don’t quite know the answer!

Anyways, to begin – left for Kauai very early in the morning. Getting up even earlier than I normally do was always a pleasure but it was exciting knowing at the end of the day I’d be in Hawaii! Two flights to get out there, nothing very eventful besides feeling like the flights would never end.

Finally arrived in Kauai and it was great to be in warm weather. Waited for bags, rental car, etc. Got upgraded to a Jeep wrangler instead of whatever economy car they normally have. It was fine, I didn’t drive it that much. It had less room in it that you’d think and it was tall so I had a harder time hoisting myself into it. They should have had a little launching pad for me to jump into it. ;)

Went to a very local Japanese place for dinner. I had chicken katsu and it was yummy. The rice was good, moist unlike the dry stuff they make out here on the east coast. :)

Drove over the the hotel – we stayed the Sheraton. It was a very nice little resort like compound although I didn’t take many pictures there. In hindsight it probably didn’t matter where we were since we didn’t spend much time at all at the hotel nor even at the hotel beach but always nice to be at a nice fancy looking place. :)

The next day was the venture out the Wimea canyon. The soil is very red and it makes for a spectacular sight. The drive through the canyon area was fun with lots of turns, scary views, and just so much beauty.

Cute little ladybug

There were some trails in the area so decided to do a little bit of hiking. The first trail was a little detour off the main one we were on that had a nice view and a end of trail sign at the end.

Then back on the other trail – I forget the name of it and I don’t have the guidebook with me but it was supposedly to a waterfall. It had trained overnight and the trail was pretty slippery and very hilly – got pretty muddy with that red dirt that I’m sure won’t come out of the shorts I was wearing!

After up and down, up and down, up up, down, up up up etc., you came to a cleared off little hill – more than a hill really but wasn’t a mountain either. The view was superb and we had seen it from the lookouts along the way up so it was cool to be where we had seen people hiking earlier.

Then to get to the waterfall you had to climb down the otherside of this hill. I’m not the best with heights and was a little frightened.

The one side a had a wee sized waterfall.

The other side a had a much larger waterfall and crazy view – it was just the waterfall, then a rock landing to sit relax… and then drop. We stopped at the rock landing to rest but I couldn’t look out because it was scary!!

I’m only at the top sitting because that’s the way you had to leave – had to backtrack the way you came. So I said wait with the camera and sat at the top of the waterfall.

Then a yummy treat after all that adventuring- shave ice. :)

Saw some cute doggies in the back of a truck

Beautiful sunset to end the day!

Here are some of the pics I took, I didn’t take that many to begin with – sometimes it just gets tiring taking pictures all the time, carrying around the lenses, etc.

I liked how the plant followed the line of the building.

Bumblebee at work

Water!

Our last visit was to North Seymour Island.

It was a pretty flat looking island, like the others

It kind of reminded me of what Mars might look like if it had life because the soil was so red!!

This was an island of birds birds birds!

As I mentioned earlier, there were tons of boobies on this island!

Sitting on a nest

Next with two eggs – they lay two eggs a few days apart. However, the older sibling usually kills the younger one. :(

Lots and lots of pics of them

Even dancing!

The cool thing about this island was the frigates. The males have these red pouches they puff out to attract females and it was pretty crazy looking!

Here’s some of them flying

Here’s a deflated one

Two guys hanging out with each other

Here’s a couple

And a baby!

Birds birds birds

Not surprisingly, there were sea lions here too! They are everywhere!

I thought this dead iguana kind of looked like a dinosaur!

And too soon, it was time for us to leave. :(

Before going to post office bay, we stopped and did a little snorkeling trip. I can’t recall the name of it, but we all loaded onto the dingy and jumped off into the water. It was around some rocks – and the water was just this amazing blue and full of fish. Unfortunately, a jellyfish had released it’s little tentacles in the water and all of us were saying Ouch!! Everyone then rushed to get back on the dingy, and we moved a little bit where there weren’t so many jellyfish. There was just so much to look at – I wanted to just float around all day. So many beautiful fish and plants – amazing!! Then some sea lions decided to hang out with us – and a couple of the people just started swimming with them. We also saw a huge school of fish – I thought it was a rock because the school was so large. It probably was a million tiny fish!! It was great – there’s just so much to see!!

Then we traveled to the Post Office Bay. It was used as a post office back in the day – allegedly so that the whalers could be spied on. Now it just contains post cards – and if there’s a post card near where you live you’re suppose to take it and hand deliver it.

The group read where all the post cards were to be sent to – they were from all over the world.

I found this funny sticker on it – No Junk Mail

After that my mom and I did some more snorkeling. The water was pretty shallow and there were a lot of fish to see – but then something captured my eye – a sea turtle!! It was HUGE. I could have grabbed onto it’s shell and gone for a ride – it was larger than me curled up. It was munching on some seaweed and didn’t seem to mind my mom and I floating above it watching, following it. They are so fast and graceful in the water.

Then the best part of the trip – a playful sea lion came over. There was a group of about four of us and the sea lion just came over and wanted to play! He/She twisted and turned – and would imitate you if you did the same. It was such a cool experience – it looked at you and followed you… being able to interact with a wild animal that chooses to be there and wants to play – wow! I had so much fun playing in the water with him/her – and one time the sea lion got my mom and I to crash into each other! :) While this was going on, another sea turtle came over to have a meal – and I can’t even describe just how incredible it was to have all this wildlife and be a part of it.

The next day we went to Cormorant Point on Floreana Island. It was kind of overcast that day.

The sand at this beach was much more brown than the other one, kind of like a little mud mixed in!

There was a sea lion heading out to sea

Lots of itty bitty treasures in the sand

Some worm tubes

A little creature

Two sides of the sea urchin

We then took a trail to the more interior part of the island

This island had more trees than the other one did, and was more green.

It had a mountain too, and a salt lagoon

With flamingos in the water!

There weren’t many and they were kind of far off unfortunately.

There was a white one – means it hasn’t eaten enough shrimp! That’s how they get their color.

We climbed to more of a lookout where you could see the lagoon better.

They had this sign – if you didn’t stop well you’d certainly stop when you landed in the lagoon!

Then we came to this bay area where the turtles come to lay their eggs. They weren’t doing it then sadly. The sand though was so incredibly soft – I’ve never felt anything like it!!

The crabs were there

Just peaceful to watch the ocean

There was a blue footed booby searching for some lunch

Then we took the trail back to where we started and did some snorkeling!

It was much better snorkeling since the water was shallower. There were plenty of fish to see – some pretty large ones too!!

During the night the boat went to Suarez point on the island of Espanola. I did feel a little ill, luckily my mom had benadryl which can be used as an anti nausea medication (I checked on epocrates, since I recalled that Dramamine is a closely related cousin to benadryl).

We had a little landing step on this beautiful beach

And no sooner did we step on this island when we discovered that the path has tons of marine iguanas on them!

They were all out sunning in the early morning – and just everywhere! You had to be really careful where you stepped because it was hard not to step on them.

When we got to the sandy part, there were tons of sea lions just hanging out. Didn’t mind us coming through, barely even reacted.


For someone who loves wildlife and animals (me!) this was incredible!! My mom is also a fan of animals and she and I were completely astounded. It was as though we were somewhat invisible because none of the animals ran away or anything. It was too cool for words!!

My mom just taking it all in…

I could have just spend hours watching – there was so much wildlife! Birds, crabs, sea lions, iguanas, lizards… I was always ending up last in the group because I just was trying to take it all in and get some good photos!!

There were these brightly colored crabs (Sally Lightfoot) everywhere – the babies were black and pretty skittish so I don’t have a picture of them, but the adults were pretty!

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Our next stop was to Gardner Bay, also on Espanola. This was a wet landing which means the dinghy goes up to the beach and then you get out in the water. These made me all sorts of paranoid because of my camera – but I dealt with it. :) My mom and I rented snorkeling gear and our first activity was snorkeling. The snorkeling was good – there was much more amazing snorkeling later in the trip. I should have probably bought a disposable underwater camera, but for me I don’t like it when I have pictures that are meh quality but I post because there’s something amazing in them. I’m too much of a perfectionist. The underwater shots are often kind of cloudy cause of all the little bitty sediments in the water. Anyways, back to Gardner Bay…

Those aren’t rocks on the beach, they are sea lions… lots and lots of sea lions!!!

The black rocks are where we snorkeled.

After snorkeling, we spent the rest of the time watching the sea lions. They are everywhere, pretty darn close and do all sorts of silly things.

Like strange noises…

Waddle around on land – and there were cute baby ones!

Sea lions take short cuts, even when it means walking over your fellow mate.

Yawn

Take a nice afternoon nap

Someone had a busy day!

Pose

Make cute eyes!!

Cuddle with mum

They were just too much fun to watch. :)