Tag Archives: dolphins

Lanai: Trip 3

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A few weeks ago, we went to Lanai for long weekend to celebrate birthdays! We stayed at the Four Seasons, which was just an unbelievable experience. We landed on Friday afternoon, checked in, and had a late lunch.

Our beautiful view.
These beautiful birds are rescue birds. They greet you on your way to your room and say “hello” among other things.
Local Fish Sandwich: tomato, onion, arugula, kalamata olive aioli with white rice & black quinoa

After lunch, we relaxed in our room and enjoyed the sunset from our lanai before dinner at Nobu. Neither of us had eaten at a Nobu before, so we weren’t sure what to expect. It absolutely blew us away. Every single thing we ate was delicious and ended up being our best dinner of the weekend.

Cheers!
Grilled Shishito Peppers
Yellowtail Jalapeño
Crispy Rice with Spicy Tuna
Black Cod Miso in Butter Lettuce
Local Whitefish Tempura
Spicy Tuna Roll
Nobu Lanai FIJI Water Shave Ice: Mango Granita, Red Bean, Tropical Fruit Confit, Locally Grown Tropical Fruits & Fresh Coconut Sorbet
Banana Toban-Yaki: Soy Caramelized Bananas, Pecans, Banana Nut Bread Croutons, Rum Raisin Ice Cream

On Saturday, also Josh’s birthday, we started our morning with a walk to the bay. We were extremely lucky and caught a pod of dolphins entering the bay. After watching them for a bit, we went back to the hotel and had an açai bowl for breakfast. Pretty much the perfect morning.

So, so good.
Such a view!

After breakfast, we left for the Lanai Cat Sanctuary to spend the day with all the cute kitties!

Josh’s cat that he sponsored in place for his birthday.
Kittens who did NOT want to be our friend.
Josh in his element. So happy!
Selfie!
Not so sure about being my friend.
Definitely wanted to be my friend.

After about four hours with the cats, we arrived back at the hotel to a surprise birthday cake for Josh in our room! We enjoyed a couple bites of cake and then got ready for dinner at Lanai City Grille.

So delicious!
House-made chips and crackers with crab dip, pimento cheese dip, and shallot crème fraîche.
Truffle Butternut Squash Bisque
Grilled Mahi Mahi served over local-style fried rice with crispy tempura scallions and sea asparagus in a miso clam broth.
Forcing Josh to love me.

On Sunday, we spent the morning and early afternoon at the beach. We relaxed, read books, snorkeled, and saw a few whales in the distance! Such a completely surreal place to spend the day.

Could spend every day here..no problem…
Doesn’t get much better than this!
Lunch!

After the most relaxing day, we enjoyed dinner at One Forty for our last evening on Lanai. We wanted to try a bunch of items so we ordered smaller plates and shared everything.

Ali’i Mushroom Soup: Crispy Shiitake Mushrooms, Spiced Macadamia Nuts, Crème Fraîche, Chives
Locally Caught Ahi Poke: Sliced Avocado, Hawaiian Kukui Nuts, Maui Sweet Onion, Avocado Puree, Soy Sauce
Kauai Shrimp: Saffron Poached-Grilled Pineapple, Sweet and Spicy Heirloom Tomato Sauce
Smoked Gouda Mac & Cheese
Lemon Sorbet & Fruit

On Monday, we walked the beach, hiked to Pu’u Pehe, and enjoyed time by the pool before we had to (sadly) leave. We are ready to go back!

Perfect weather. Perfect view from the pool.
One last look at our lovely view!

The Big Island: Trip 3 – Day 1

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This past weekend, Josh and I headed to the Big Island one last time for our last trip before Josh deploys and I move. We flew in on Friday night and checked into our hotel to get some sleep before starting our early and very busy Saturday.

Our first stop of the weekend was kayaking across Kealakekua Bay to the Captain Cook Monument to snorkel. The snorkeling and kayak tour came highly recommended to us and they definitely did not disappoint! On our 1 1/2 mile kayak to the monument, we were surrounded by a pod of spinner dolphins. It was so amazing to be so close to them and on their level! The video below shows just how close they were too us. Amazing!

Kayaking with Dolphins Video

After kayaking over to the monument, we landed our kayaks and got our snorkel gear ready. We also took some time to admire the monument. Captain Cook first visited the islands in 1778. It was thought that he and his crew were gods and were welcomed with open arms during a time of peace. After exploiting the kindness of the Hawaiian people, he left and returned during a time of war where he was not exactly welcomed back with open arms. He was killed in the bay by the Hawaiians and the monument memorializes his death.

Kealakekua Bay.
Captain Cook Monument.
Kealakekua Bay from the other side.
Amazing cliffs.

Next, it was time to snorkel!! It was absolutely stunning. By far the best snorkeling I have ever seen. I could have spent hours just swimming around the area. It was great, as we were the only group (us and one other couple with our guide) and two other random people. We beat the crowd of tour boats!

Kealakekua Bay Snorkeling Video

Trumpetfish. Amazing!
Me swimming with a Needlefish. They were everywhere.
Tons of baby Needlefish on the surface…so hard to see.
Tons of yellow tangs.
Yellow Tang up close and personal.
Fourspot Butterfly.
Rainbow Butterflys.
Parrotfish.
More of the Parrotfish.
Grouper.
Amazing coral life.
Orange Spined Tang.
Orangeband Surgeonfish.
Two big Needle fish.
Parrotfish and yellow tangs.
Pennant fish.
Threadfin Butterfly .
Black Surgeonfish.
Arc-eye Hawkfish and Spotted Sharpnose Puffer.
Black Surgeonfish.
Trumpetfish and Fourspot Butterfly fish.
Blackspot Sergeant, Lowfin Chub and Achilles Tang.
Lowfin Chub, Achilles Tang.
Lowfin Chub.
Trumpetfish and Tellow Tang.
Parrotfish.
The massive boat of tourists coming our way.

After we finished snorkeling, we headed back across the bay. We encountered more dolphins along the way showing off their spinning moves. After we had lunch, we went back to the hotel to shower, change and start making our way towards Mauna Kea. The Mauna Kea summit sits at 13,796 feet and houses University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy and Mauna Kea Observatories. The 13 telescopes are operated by astronomers from 11 different countries. It was an incredible sight to see.

We stopped at the Visitor Information Station (9,200 ft above sea level) to acclimate to the elevation before heading to the summit. After about an hour, we headed up to the summit to catch the sunset and check out the observatories. Unfortunately, it was pretty cloudy so we didn’t get to see the sunset, but the clouds were still beautiful.

Heading up to the summit.
Telescopes!
This guy was flying this remote controlled plane around. Pretty cool.
The sun setting. Which we cannot see (of course).
Cool clouds.
Pretty sky even though we couldn’t see the sunset.
Our attempt at taking pictures of stars. It did not work!

After that, we headed back down to do some star gazing. The Visitor Information Station sets up multiple telescopes for people to view things far, far away! It was awesome. The stars were absolutely breathtaking. I have never experienced anything like it! Once we finished viewing everything through the telescopes, we wandered through the gift shop and then headed over to a picnic table area, where it was pitch black, to better view the stars. As we were sitting there mesmerized, Josh said “So I have a question for you”. My response was, naturally, something along the lines of “Yeah, what’s up?”. To which he replied “Will you marry me?” as he got down off the bench onto one knee (in the dark). I was COMPLETELY shocked and surprised and uttered things such as “EXCUSE ME!?” and “ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!”. After I slightly recovered, I remembered to say “OF COURSE YES!!!!!!”. Since it was so dark, I couldn’t see the ring he had…he jokingly said “So I know it’s dark, but I promise it’s pretty”. It was an absolutely amazing and unexpected way to end the day! As I sit here writing this, I’m still in shock! We attempted to take a selfie picture of the two of us and, of course, cut half our faces off (typical). So that is our engagement picture…sitting in the dark with half our faces cut off and squinty eyes! Once we got back to the car, we took a much better one (below). Then I decided to call my mom and wake her up at 2:00 am her time to tell her the amazing news! We then made it back to civilization to find a place to eat dinner. Since it was so late, one of the only places open was “Humpy’s”. Yep, we celebrated our engagement at a restaurant called “Humpy’s”. Hilarious! All in all, I would say it was one successful day on The Big Island!

Engaged!!!

Engaged!!!

Kauai: Trip 2 – Day 1

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This past weekend, Josh and I took our fourth trip to Kauai (which I believe we have 100% determined to be our favorite island). This time, we ventured there to take a boat tour of the Na Pali coast and to hike to Hanakapi’ai Falls.

Our Saturday morning started out bright and early as we had an hour drive to the boat harbor where we would be departing on our tour. We left at 7:00 a.m. and headed towards the Na Pali coast. Our guide told us that there had been a really large swell the past few days that made it impossible to go in the caves and snorkel as well as, made the boat ride an extremely rough one. We lucked out! We were able to do all of the above and had an amazing experience.

One of the things I was incredibly excited about was the chance that we would get to see Hawaiian spinner dolphins. I have wanted to see dolphins out in the open water since I’ve lived here, but hadn’t gotten to experience that yet. I definitely fixed that on this trip! We saw TONS of them on multiple occasions. Our first encounter provided us with a small pod that had a few babies in it. One of them was the size of a football and was so incredibly cute. They were on all sides of our boat and periodically jumped out of the water to spin. It was amazing!

You can see the tiny baby between the two bigger dolphins. So cute!
Right on the side of our boat. Amazing!
Another baby dolphin and the mom.
RIGHT in front of our boat.
We were surrounded by them.
Leading our boat. They also liked to surf on the wake behind us.
Showing off a little further out!
More showing off!

After getting to experience the dolphins, we continued on to the indescribable beauty of the cliffs of the Na Pali coast. To see it from this angle was, to put it mildly, absolutely stunning. Every time I see this landscape, I always think I’m prepared because I have seen it multiple times before…and I will no longer experience the awe of what I am taking in. However, it never disappoints. Every single time it nearly takes my breath away.

The privately owned island of Niihau.
You can see in the rocks where the earth cracked and then new lava filled in. Pretty amazing.
First glimpse of the cliffs.
Waterfall along the coast.
Kalalau beach. Much prettier than when we hiked to it.
Kalalau valley.
The absurd red hill that we had to claw our way up b/c it was a mudslide when we hiked it!
The scary part of the hike…crawler’s ledge. Looks much less scary on the boat.

After we made it down the whole coast, we turned around to head back. On our trip back, we got to venture inside the sea caves and get a little closer to the coast.

Sitting inside the first sea cave.
We went in one entrance and came out of another…we came out practically under this waterfall.
Sea cave. We went in one entrance and out of the other one.
Kalalau valley.
This part of the coast is called the cathedrals.
The entrance to the sea cave framing the waterfall.
This cave was open on the top. Years of erosion from the water hitting the top of the cave made it fall in.
The rock in the middle was the top of the sea cave at one point.

After touring the sea caves and taking more pictures of the coast, we were able to stop and snorkel for a little bit. Oddly enough, only Josh and I snorkeled out of the six people on our tour. It was a little rough, but there were some pretty big fish. Josh also got to see a HUGE sea turtle. I unfortunately got out about five minutes before he did and missed it! He got great footage of it though!

Na Pali Coast Snorkel

Needle fish.
The biggest turtle!

After having some snacks and drying off, we headed back to the harbor. On our way back we came across about five times as many dolphins as we had encountered in the beginning of our tour. They were jumping out of the water everywhere, surfing our wake and just swimming all around us.

I love that they just look like they are loving life!
So happy and so free!
Literally surrounded by them.

After seeing dolphins for the second time, we made it back to the harbor around noon. We were both pretty exhausted and starving. We made it back to our hotel and grabbed a bite to eat. After that, we took a ridiculously long nap (I had taken dramamine and was seasick and we were both exhausted from lack of sleep). We woke up, grabbed dinner at the restaurant we ate at after we hiked the Kalalau Trail last year and headed back to our hotel. We packed up our stuff and headed to bed in preparation for another early morning!