Rain again this morning.  We pulled into Nawiliwili Bay on the island of Kauai about 7:30 AM.  Kauai was the site of many movies including South Pacific, Blue Hawaii, Jurassic Park, and several others.  In fact, Johnny Depp is filming another Pirates of the Caribbean sequel as this is being written.  Today, we saw evidence of the magnificent rain forest and beautiful beaches.  Our tour today was the north side of Kauai; our private guide, Ernesto Valenciana, was one of 4 survivors of a DC10 crash in Mexico in the 1970s, while serving as a flight attendant on the plane, and told us of the ensuing cover up by the airline, the Mexican government, and the US government.  His story is quite amazing, but we have to verify before passing it on.  Anyway, we passed by the now dilapidated hotel where parts of Blue Hawaii were filmed, Hanalei (Puff the Magic Dragon…in a land called Hanalei), beautiful waterfalls, and great beaches. 

As a side note, Hawaii has both the driest and wettest climate on earth, and on Kauai, Mt. Waialeale, is the wettest spot on earth.  And oh yeah, Kauai is full of free range chickens.  Many years ago, a hurricane blew all the cages hither and yon, the chickens escaped, and because they eat the huge centipedes, locals have let them have the run of the island.  They are everywhere, and we heard one after another crowing as we left the ship.

There was great entertainment tonight:  we saw the group, Toby Beau, twice tonight singing a tribute to Rock ‘n Roll (remember Toby Beau had the #1 hit single, My Angel Baby in 1978), then Fred Becker, a great magician.


Kay’s Take:  This island is what I had imagined that Hawaii would look like.  Kauai is called the garden isle.  Our guide took us to the  Regis Hotel which was built on the spot that Emile’s plantation home occupied in the musical, South Pacific  Looking out from that bluff, we could see Bali Hai – the visual image and the surrounding ocean.  It was glorious. The hotel is probably a five star.  No expense was sparred. We saw so many wonderful beaches on the eastern/northern side of this island.  Our guide pointed out Sylvester Stallone‘s and Harrison Ford’s houses.  We drove until the road ended.  Tomorrow, we drive west and North towards Hawaii’s grand canyon.