Hawaii 9 - Airtour

 I slept great last night. Windows open, fans on low, a hundred feet from then beach. Not sure where I'm going with this, but that couch is magic. I thought I woke up as soon as the first family member walked into the room, but they'd been in and out for an hour. Magic. Anyways, today was the day for our air-tour!

First things first: Sage has these adorable little ear-muffs that make her look like princess Leia. Our plane was an Airvan 8-seater, and loading up Adam and the pilot proceeded to talk shop, Dani took pictures of Sage, Dad took pictures of Dani taking pictures of Sage, you know. Standard things.

Takeoff was super fun. Taking off in a airvan on a runway designed for 737s is comical, there's so much room it feels like being the only car on a 10 lane highway. Plus with our power/weight ratio we were up and turning out before we even got to mid-field.

The first things we saw were gorgeous views of the coast, while also getting great overview and mental-map of the island... then we flew right over our house! We could spot "Baby Beach", from there we could identify the houses across from ours, and then ours and it's mirrored twin! Very fun start to the flight.

Our first cut inland we flew up (while still fully above) a canyon to see a some famous waterfalls, but with the wind coming off the terrain, we start to get some slips and hops. I ignored it, and snapped some pics, asking questions and such.... and the next canyon was more slippy and hoppy, and I spiraled. Not the plane, just me.

I don't know if the plane was super hot, if covid left me vulnerable to air sickness, or if I'm just not the badass I was at the age of 25 - but the rest of the flight was me sweating, trying to stay in the small blast of air from my window, trying to convince myself I felt fine because the views were stellar.

And the views were truly incredible, this terrain is amazing. The mountains get 500 inches of rain a year. Their record was 50 inches in a day. So the waterfalls are endemic and epic. While you would normally need a whole alpine valley to feed a waterfall, here every valley gets one or two..... or a whole chain, each waterfall world-class.  Absolutely gorgeous. I'm definitely not going to throw up. I'm totally fine.

Waimea Canyon is called the "Grand Canyon of the Islands" and it deserves it, this is epically huge. It must have taken every single year of Kauai's 50 million to carve this. (For comparison, the Big Island - the newest isle - is only 500,000 years old). Some rich dude even has a house on top of the rainforest-canyon, accessible only by helo. More waterfalls! This is incredible. They said mints will make me feel better. I'll eat a mint.

Dad took this one while I was reeling

Oh cool that's where we went to the beach yesterday! Only a half-mile down the coast from the secret beaches they used to bury their royalty at! This landscape is stunning. Another mint. Lets try Dramamine too. And one for dad.

Beach spot!

We finished it off with a beautifully performed but (in my experience) brutal spiral around a double waterfall famous for some 70s TV show, and a very smooth landing. Despite being on the ground, it took me several minutes before I was fully in my right mind... but I absolutely could and did fake blasé, regardless if my ears were at the same pressure or not.  Great tour though, so many incredible features and I now understand exactly where they are around the island.

On our way home from the airport we stopped by the Kaloa Puhi... aka 'Spouting Horn Blowhole'. I've been informed I can't call it a squirter.  I thought it was gonna be a little poofer, but it's actually probably a dozen poofers, of all different style and sizes. One is a hot tub, that violently fills and drains. Another just harrumphs at you like an angry whale with little visible consequence. Several explode like champagne bottles, but the good ones when you soak them in hot water to see how far you can shoot the corks. And the star of the show was throwing water at least 30' in the air. It was absolutely geyser-level, and I was quite impressed.

It's better in video... give me a month :)

We also did drive-bys of several beaches, and after lunch at our aribnb we decided on Piopo bay, just a few minutes down the road.  But my parents and I were feeling rough, so the the younger half of our crew headed over while we took naps and covid tests. My mom is the lone survivor. So far.  After an hour of recuperation, we headed over to the beach! I still spent most the time reading, but the breezes were better on the beach so I enjoyed it, and eventually, I felt good enough to snorkel. The first mask I tried was garbage (this is all communal airbnb gear), and I struggled to see or enjoy anything. But the second mask was great! And despite the silty nature and constantly dodging people you could actually see a lot of fish. Not Molokini quality, obvs, but bizarrely vivacious for such a high-traffic spot. The cool green-and-orange guys, angelfish, parrotfish, some sea slug or cucumber or something disguised as coral, one or two of the black dudes, and my favorites: A massive school of one-inch silver tetras (probably not actually tetras) fluttering, dancing, mesmerizing. 

I trudged up to shore to grab my gopro, and took a third pass to find those tetras on film, but instead I found a school of 8" long dudes hanging out by the breakwater. You could chill with them until a wave came over/through the breakwater wall and buried everyone in bubbles. I figured I should film this and accidentally pressed the wrong button on my gopro, putting it into slow motion. I was about to fix it, before I realized I should absolutely film this in slow motion, so went with it. It was a perfect blend of serene and visually intense. Hopefully I'll end this series with a chill b-roll competition, harass me if I don't.

Again, way better in motion... 

To round off the day, we swung by a fishery and headed home. Homecooked fish tacos (they were fantastic) preceded hanging out with the baby at Baby Beach, and another failed attempt at watching the green flash (typical). But even a failure to see the perfect sunset is pretty great, just like a squishy airtour is leagues better than documenting the daily minutia of firmware development.