Feb. 11, Wed.: Lydgate

Today started off pretty early again.  Not that I wanted it to, but my phone rang at 7, so I looked outside and decided to go out and watch the sunrise again.

 When I came back to our lanai, we had a couple visitors.

 Breakfast was in order today, so we headed to----Olympic Cafe!  Loved this painted garage along our route to Olympic Cafe.  In fact, there are several interesting painted buildings in Kauai.  Only painted buildings we see back home are the painted up boards on the stores in Ferguson to keep them from being broken into. 

Breakfast was great, as expected.  Service was stellar again.
We decided to check and see if the monk seal was still at Baby Beach.  There was one there, but this one wasn't scarred.  The monk seal patrol was there.  Had an interesting talk with her about the one we saw a few days earlier.  She showed me a sign about that one which I took a picture of and added to that part of the blog.  She didn't have much to say about this one. 

 Back on the main highway, I marveled at these woodcavings.

 We thought since the wind was down, maybe we could snorkel Anini.  so we headed north.  Unfortunately, the wind was still strong on the north shore and Anini was still a bit cloudy with lots of wind caps on the surface.  Could have snorkeled, but decided to check Anahola.  Anahola was very windy, too, so we continued down the Eastside to Lydgate.  As we entered Kapaa, we passed the bypass, so turned into the fairgrounds to turn around.  Love this sign there!  I remember as a kid being told if you dig deep enough you'd end up in China----I guess it's really true!

 Also loved this shark sign.  Reminds me of the shark my daughter has hanging in their kitchen---yes, she really has a replica shark hanging in her kitchen!!!

 Lydgate was great again.  Hardly any wind, lots of sun, calm water.  Also had a lot of people there throughout the day.

 I was excited to see this guy!  I've never seen one of them anywhere around Hawaii.   I've seen his cousins in the Caribbean, but this is the only Thornback Cowfish i've seen.

 I believe this is a chub.  Usually they're rather bland, but there are quite a few of these spotted ones around Kauai.

 There are usually a couple Jacks in Lydgate, and there still are.

 thread fin butterfly fish

Note the 2 fish at the bottom of this picture.  I've never seen them before, either.  I assume they are a type of Flagtail, but can't find them online.  they have 2 dorsal fins.

 Glad to see the little school of Stripeys are still there, too.  Lydgate is the only place I've seen them except for the honolulu aquarium.

 There were 2 large stripebelly puffers, too, just like last year.  I assume they're the same ones.

 Assorted fish by the rock wall.

 Flounder.

 There is still a large school of Yellowfin Surgeonfish here, too.  The school doesn't seem to be as large as last year, though.  On a funny note, I overheard a young man and his better half talking about the barracuda.  He mentioned that they can't get out.  She asked how did it get there then and he said the lifeguard must have put it in there. 

 this is another hard to find fish---Leaf Scorpionfish. 

 We even saw a few of these guys underwater.  usually we just see them on the rocks above water.

 Don't often get a picture of these guys, either.  They're rather shy---Cardinal fish.

 white spotted toby

 And the cute little racoon butterflyfish

 After a couple hours of snorkeling, we enjoyed the beach for awhile.  Then retreated to our resort where we warmed up in the jacuzzi again.  Then got ready and headed off to Bullshed Restaurant.  The salad bar was great.  My $20 steak kabobs were ok--a little grissly, but service was pretty good.  Ken's pork ribs were very good and tender.  Our happy hour domestic beers weren't bad either.

 On our way back to the resort, we came across this pink painted tree---where else but in Kauai?!

 The sun was setting as we got back to our resort.  This is looking West from our parking spot.

Thus ends another beautiful day on Kauai.  I can't believe it's our 6th night here!!!!  Tomorrow it's on to Maui on our 11:10 Hawaiian flight.  Hope we have as great a time there as we've had here!  Ken's already talking about coming back for 4 weeks next year!