FEb. 4, 2014---hanging out on the east side until our flight:  DAy 18-

 We went to The Beach Walk for breakfast again.  I had the cream cheese stuffed Hawaiian bread french toast.  It was very good!  
Then we walked along the beach at Lydgate park for a while.

 We like to look for whales by the lighthouse by the airport, so we hung out there for an hour or so.  Saw lots of spouting, but no breaching.

Jan. 28, 2014 --Hubby's big birthday!


The old guy reached another landmark birthday today!  Now he's 62 and able to draw social security!  Yea!!!  I made him plan the day today.  Should make him do it more often.  It was another great day!  Even the weather was great again.  Nice to see lots of sun again.  It was quite windy---20-25mph out of the north with gusts of 40.    But it didn't stop us.
DH decided we should finally ride bikes on the East side bike/walk path.  We've talked about doing this for years.  We found a shop behind Ono Restuarant in Kapaa that rents them for $10 for 2 people for 1 hour or $15 for 2 hours.  My cruiser worked quite well.  I was surprised how well it did in the 25mph headwinds.  Ken had problems with his and ended up waiting by the pier 3 or 4 miles into the ride for me to get back from the end of the trail.  Here are a few pictures from the trail:

Jan. 20, East side----

Another beautiful day here on Kauai!  I was surprised to see it was light already when I woke up.  I must be on Hawaii time already!  Breakfast was here in our condo today---eggs and half of our leftover pancakes from Olympic Cafe  (they even gave us syrup to bring "home").  Then I wandered around the KCR grounds a bit.  Even went and asked at the office if they had beach chairs and umbrellas to borrow, they did, so I happily borrowed some.    I also sat staring out at the ocean for awhile being entertained by a very energetic whale.  It put on quite the breaching exhibition!  Too bad it was so far out.  I did take a picture, but it was with my p&s camera.  That was just the first of the many breaches we saw today.  Unfortunately, they were all way out there and I didn't have my dslr with me at the times.  I have never seen so many breaches in all our trips to Hawaii!!! 

I was anxious to check out Lydgate.  So we headed there and spent about 4 hours there.  I will admit, though, that I was a bit concerned when I first stepped in.  I have been spoiled by the Caribbean water temperatures (about 83 degrees)!  But it wasn't too bad once I took the plunge (about 75 degrees).  We spent about 2 hours snorkeling the rock wall.

Day 2: Jan. 19, 2014---around the east side and on to Poipu

 It was another short night.  Somehow, no matter how tired we are, the 4 hours time difference from St. Louis to Hawaii wakes us up early for the first few days.  Good thing is, I did get to see sunrise from our lanai.  No ocean view, but the mountain and garden views are nice.

The day after we fly all day, we're pretty tired, so we don't usually snorkel that day.  But we did get out and enjoy the island.  First we headed to Kapaa for breakfast at our favorite breakfast place---Olympic Cafe.  Then rode along the East side a while checking out a couple viewpoints and to Kealia Beach.

 Feb. 21, 2012: Lydgate, then to the airport to pick up the Schneides

Getting a bit of an early start on this today.  We hung around the east side today waiting for our friends to arrive.  Their flight is due in about 6pm, but that's with a 3 hour layover in Oahu.  Thought they might try flying stand by.

Ken cooked breakfast again.  Then we were off to Lihue to mail postcards----$.32/postcard stamp!!!  Wow!!!  We also went to Hamura's Saimin and bought a whole lilikoi chiffon pie for $16.50.   Yes, it's that good!!!

 Eventually, we decided to head to Lydgate for some more snorkeling close by.  Weather was nice again!  Clouds rolling through, but no rain.  Lots of wind still, but that's not unusual. Temps are about 80 and lots of sunshine.  So snorkeling was in order. 

Along our way, we came across one person who doesn't like us.

So we went where the message was nicer.

Lydage was beautiful again.

Even saw some fish I had never seen there before and have only seen a couple of times in all of Kauai during our 11 trips so far.  Here's an elusive trumpet fish.

Also saw 2 whitesaddle goatfish.  Only seen these guys at Anini until now.

It's too bad the water isn't clear like it use to be!  Hopefully it'll corrects itself by next year.  Just another picture as we were leaving Lydgate.

After leaving there, we went back to KBV and headed to the jacuzzi at KB resort.  It's conveniently located to our condo, which is in the building shown in  this picture.

With a couple more hours to go, I decided to sit on the beach and watch the ocean.  For my entertainment, there were a million little red crabs running all over the beach.  Fast little guys!

And if that wasn't enough entertainment, there was a guy kite surfing back and forth in front of our beach.  He even did some leaps and spins. 

Don't think I'll get any sunset pictures tonight.  With their plane due in a little after 6, sunset pictures will have to wait.  Not sure what dinner will be.  We've been debating on that all day---Duke's, the Marina, Bullshed, Bubba's, Olympic cafe, ????  decisions, decisions!

Our friends arrived safe and sound and even on. After a quick stop at the condo, we decided on the Olympic Cafe for dinner. It was great! no pictures from the railing, though. Railing seating was full so we sat at a regular table. 

Feb. 18, 2012: East side and Lawai

Today was the 1st of our "move" days.  But since we spent the first 2 nights also here at Kauai Beach Villas, we were able to pack our stuff up, leave, and they moved everything for us when our new room was ready.  So after packing everything back up (not that we have that much since we've learned to travel here with carry on only, but it always seems to expand when we "move" in) we headed out.
First stop was to the farmers' market at the Community College. 

 Seems to me this market prices their goods higher then many of the other's we've been to.  But we did get a few things---like apple bananas and some weird little round fruit (Longan fruit) that reminded me of rambutons in flavor.

And, of course, we had to get a piece of Right Slice pie!  Usually I get the mango lilikoi one, but this time we shared a macadamia nut piece.  It was very good, too.

A sign here really caught my attention---What the heck is tard hummus!? (ok, better eyes then mine say that's taro hummus.)

When we left there, we headed to Kalapaki Bay to check out the waves and surfers.  It was another beautiful day, but very windy.  The wind howled so loud last night it sounded like our condo was being blown away.  Between the wind and the rain, it was loud! 

Another view of Kalapaki looking back at the Marriott.

Since we were in the area, we decided to stop at Kalapaki Joe's and get a late lunch---grilled fish salad for me and chicken caesar for Ken.  Too bad it wasn't about an hour later, they have a pretty impressive looking happy hour menu.  But the salads were good.  Another 2nd floor restaurant, but not nearly as entertaining as Olympic Cafe.

Shortly after lunch, the condo people called us to tell us our condo was ready so we headed back and picked up our keys and anxiously headed to check out our ocean view 2 bedroom unit.  It is on the ground level, but still has a pretty impressive view of the ocean and it's close to the pools at the hotel next door.  It's nice that they let us use their pools again.  Here's the view from our patio.

After settling in a bit, we decided snorkeling was in order again so headed south.  Ended up at Lawai.  There was a pretty good current running there this evening, but we still enjoyed a couple hours there.  Saw lots of fish, especially at these many cleaning stations.

Shortly before sunset, we got out and were gazing at the water when this playful pup came over.  He had a tennis ball and went up and down the beach getting people to throw it for him.  He really liked when it was tossed into the water so he could swim out to get it.  If noone would throw it, he'd dig at it in the sand until it went flying behind him then he'd chase it.  We spent at least a half hour playing with and watching him.

As the sun was setting, I wandered around the Beach House lawn and Lawai beach taking pictures.  It was a bit of a dud sunset, again.  Here's as creative as I could get tonight.

On the way back to the east side, we stopped at Walmart for a few more supplies.  Including our gourmet dinner---hotdogs (not Puka Dogs or Costco, plain 'ol package dogs from Walmart.)  The dogs actually tasted pretty good for a change.  Can't say when the last time was I made hotdogs for dinner!

2011-Feb. 24: East Kauai, Kee, Tunnels, Kilauea Light house, Shark!

It was a beautiful morning on the east side. But all the rain the day before washed lots of dirt into the ocean by the river mouths. There is a drainage ditch next to KBV, so lots of dirt was washed into the water by our condo.

The north shore was suppose to be the place to be still, so we decided to head north. On our way, we stopped by Lydgate to check out the red dirt washed into the ocean from the Wailua River. It was pretty daunting.

We continued up the East side.  This is near Kealia

 Love stopping and checking out the view from the lighthouse lookout.

Love this section of road through Kilauea on our way from the lighthouse look out.

Decided to check Anini out.   I was surprised to see the water calm and clear here and wondered if it would be as clear farther North.

  Found a guy playing a keyboard there at Anini.  He was really good! But we didn't stay long since now I was wanting to check out Kee or Tunnels.

 a north beach along our drive.

When we got to Kee, the ocean was calm and clear. We spent several hours here. First I walked down the beach marveling at the calm water and reflection of the clouds in it.

The rocky shelf by Kee.

 While snorkeling, we came across another eel we had never seen before. I believe it is a magnificent snake eel.

Also saw several more coronet fish, but this is the first one I've seen at Kauai with the intricate markings (had seen them in the Caymans before).

This is another new guy to me---a Hawaiian knife fish.

With the calmness of the water we were able to get way out by the opening in the reef. There is where I found this large school or Moi fish.

And another look of the Napali with it's reflection in the calm water.

We left Kee in hopes of getting a parking spot at Tunnels and catching a sunset there. We did get a parking spot.

Here's another new encounter! Fortunately I didn't see it coming or I probably would have flipped out. I was actually standing in the water taking the picture above of Bali Hai when it came up from behind me. When I went back into the water, this white tipped reef shark was about 10' off to the side of me and vearing away towards the deep water. Since it was going away, I took this picture, then I went the opposite direction and figured I'd had enough snorkeling for one day. Knowing things look a lot bigger under water, we figured it was probably only about 4 or 5 feet long even though it looked like it was Jaws at the time!  I even tried to warn another couple about my shark sighting and their response was, "You're not from here, are you?"  Then they took off to the exact spot where I saw it.

Still hoping for a nice sunset, I wandered around the beach for awhile.

Not the prettiest of sunsets, but not too bad.

When we were leaving the beach, I was looking for the hummingbird that I had seen the last time we were there. It showed up, along with a couple friends. As I was taking pictures of it, I realized it had antennae and therefore couldn't be a hummingbird, even though it was the same size and had the same hovering and darting motions. Someone later told me it's a hummingbird moth. Definately an interesting insect.