I had the turtle cam going for a while there.

Back in June Alaska Airlines announced that they were going to start flying nonstop from Seattle to Hawaii, and in orderto get some excitement around the whole thing they introduces some fabulously cheap fares. Chrystie and I couldn't resistand picked up some tickets to visit Kauai for a long weekend. The trip finally arrived in early November, which I think makes it the longest I've ever waited to enjoy the spoils from an impulse purchase...

We decided to go to Kauai instead of Oahu (Alaska flies nonstop to both from Seattle) and were very happy with our choice. I'd been to Kauai before, but no since I was a kid, so it was great to go back. I remembered a few things about it, but it was essentially a new place for both of us.

We flew out on Thursday after work and go to Kauai in the evening. After picking up the car we drove down to Poipu on the South shore to check into our condo. Staying in a condo was pretty sweet since we had a full kitcken so we could take care of snacks and a few meals on our own from the grocery store. But that wasn't our style the first night. I have a co-worker who visits Poipu every year and hooked us up with some recommendations, so for night one we went out to eat at a nice restaurant nearby, then went home to get some sleep.

Friday was our designated beach day and the weather was gorgeous for it. We started out wandering over to the Grand Hyatt to check them out and splurge on breakfast. Their food was both fantastic and overpriced, and the grounds were immaculate. After breakfast we ran a few errands, including buying some great pinneaple at a little fruit stand and renting me some boogie boarding gear. With those finished it was time to hit the beach. Chrystie was looking forward to some time on the sand in the sun, and I couldn't wait to get in the water. We both got our wish. She got to relax in the sun and I got some time both snorkling and boogie boarding on the local beaches. Friday night we got another great dinner and did some gift shopping.

When we woke up on Saturday it was raining about as hard as I've ever seen it rain. I thought this would be fine, since the rain in Hawaii typically passes pretty quickly, but this storm had some teeth. It hung around all day and broke some rainfall records in the process. We didn't mind too much though since this was our scuba diving day! It was time for us to put that scuba certification to work and try our first boat dive. We went with Seasport Divers on recommendation from ourlocal scuba shop and were very happy.

We ended up on a really small trip, with just five divers on a huge boat and did two dives. Both were interesting, and both had us in new underwater environments. In the first dive we went down to about 80 feet, far deeper than we'd been before. Then for the second dive we were in some worn out lava tubes so we were often swimming under and through parts of the rock. The visibility was amazing and there was a ton of sealife, including enough sea turtles that I lost count. Since it was our first dive we splurged and bought a video of it from our divemaster, who was filming with an underwater camcorder.

(I decided to use this opportunity to try out some new encoding and web tools, including the new Silverlight runtime so you'll have to download that to watch the video. It's a great piece of software though!)

Sunday we set out for a drive up the Waimea canyon. The weather started out bad early, but was better by the time we set out. The drive up to the canyon was great, with lots of places to pull over and admire the scenery. But with all the rains recently there wasn't much to do once we got up there. The trails didn't look very appatizing, and the coast side viewpoints were totally whited out by the clouds. There were some great views of the canyon though.

On the way back down we took the scenic route through a few towns and grabbed a shave ice, which was so good we had a hard time sharing it. Then that night we went back to the Hyatt to go to their Luau (we'd wanted to go to the one at Smith's Tropical Paradise, but the only showof theirs we could make was sold out.) The Hyatt had the Luau inside because of the rain, which was a bummer, but we still had fun eating all the various food, taking advantage of the open bar, and watching the dancers do their things. The even brough Chrystie on stage at the end to dance for the whole crowd. She rocked it, of course.

Our flight out on Monday wasn't until late, so we had the whole day to explore the North side of the Island. We drove up to the North Shore admiring the sights, then kept following the little road all the way until it ended at the trailhead for the hike down the Na Pali coast. This is a trail that a lot of people backpack, but the first two miles in is open to day hiking. We'd been told it was a tough hike, and it really was. The trail winds up and down the rugged coastline to a small valley and beach. On the way there's lots of steep sections with muddy, slippery rocks to traverse. Chrystie and I were going pretty fast and it still took us about 80 minutes each way. The views along the way were spectacular though and I highly recommend this hike. But beware, if you're staying on the south part of the island it will take all day between driving up there (it takes way longer than it looks like it will on the map) and the hike in and out. The beach there at the trailhead is also quite nice.

After coming out of the trailhead we went for a swim to wash the mud off and set back towards town. We stopped in Hanalei for some food then headed back towards the airport. After trying to call the local YMCA to see if we could pay them off to use their showers (no answer) we ended up roughing it with a cold water shower at a state park (it was night time by this point and a bit cold too - I was not Chrystie's favorite person.) After getting cleaned up it was time to head to the airport for a red-eye back to Seattle.

The shock of the cold Seattle air was a bit tough to handle, but was certainly better than not going at all. We both had a great time and managed to do all the things we wanted, including some relaxation. We had such a good time we're now thinking about getting some friends together to go for a week sometime and rent a house!

Some of our recommendations from the trip:

• Kauai Revealed Guidebook - This guidebook is fantastic. I highly recommend it.
• Hukilau Lanai - Easily the best dinner we had on the island, excellent fish.
• Puka Dog - Surprisingly good hot dogs in Poipu.
• Jo-Jo's Shave Ice - In Waimea. There's two, go to the one off the highway, on the sidestreet.
• Seasport Divers - We really enjoyed out boat dive with them!
• Kalalau Tail - On the Na Pali coast. This is a hard, but amazing four mile round trip hike to a remote beach.

Enjoy!