Back To Adventure!

When you don't get outdoors while working in Hawaii, it can be a frustrating thing... I love my work here, but I also love my free time - especially when I get outside and do new things. Last weekend, I hiked up the Ka'iwa ridge overlooking Lanikai, just to get some exercise. From there, you can get a great view of the Moku-lua islands which are about 1.25 miles out in the ocean. These islands have been one of my desired adventure targets ever since I saw them last November. So, DeAnna suggested that we rent a sea kayak and paddle out to the islands and that is what we did Saturday morning!

Starting off at about 9:30am, we toted our plastic sea kayak to the beach and jumped into the waves. Almost immediately we realized that the nice breeze we felt in the parking lot, was actually 15 to 20 miles per hour out on the ocean - IN THE WRONG DIRECTION!!! We struggled against the wind for 30 minutes to get just down the beach to Flat Island. Moku-lua was about 2 miles further on.

After stopping for a quick break at Flat Island, we jumped back in the kayak and headed into the waves (against the wind).

It was... well, it was an upper body workout to paddle for the next hour and a half. On the way, we saw sea turtles and found some interesting places to snorkel. We also found some shallow reefs where waves were breaking! As we worked our way out into the ocean, the waves got bigger and bigger. Finally, we got close enough to the first island that the waves were smaller, but though the waves were smaller, they came at us from two different directions.

As the waves hit the island, they wrapped around to the back side, creating a sandy point where waves slap together. Beaching your kayak on this beach takes timing and effort. We were already tired from fighting the wind, we were fighting the waves as well and now we were fighting waves coming from two different directions. We rode a couple of waves over the reef and rocks, then paddled hard onto the sand and pulled the kayak high up onto the beach.

Glad to be out of the water, we explored some of the island, but the huge waves on the ocean (windward) side kept us close to the beach. The beach itself is not from the island which is made of sharp lava flows and shelves. In some places, massive boulders were stacked into wall-like formations. Waves that were crashing on the rocks 100 feet away blew spray that was still airborne when it landed on us!



We worked our way along the rocky shore and I took pictures of the shoreline. Remember the picture of the islands above? Here is a picture of the Ka'iwa ridge where that picture was taken. If you look closely, you can see the tiny blockhouse that I'm standing on!


I explored the rest of the small beach area for a while, but DeAnna may have had a better idea! We eventually loaded up and headed back to shore. It only took us 30 minutes to make it back to the shore where we first started! An exciting journey for a Saturday in Paradise, but another adventure was waiting when we got home - our wedding rings had finally arrived! That was in Honolulu, not a mile off the windward shore of the island! Read about it in my next blog entry!