Welcome to our last full day on Kauai.  Today, I think we will head north, up to Hanalei and visit the dragon… (Puff, the magic one)
Then come back south to do some touristy stuff (lounge around or in the pool, etc).

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We took a luxury catamaran yacht on a deluxe dinner cruise up the NaPali coastline. This area is only accessible by air, sea or several hours of very intense hiking and mountain climbing.

We departed out of Port Allen on the southern coast of Kauai about 3pm.

Pacific Naval Missile Range at Barking Sands Beach on the Southwest corner of Kauai.

This point is the western most point of land that is publicly accessible in the 50 United States. (Territorial lands excluded)

Surfing on this beach is considered the best on Kauai, but very difficult to access, 15+ miles of un-maintained dirt roads…

Views of the NaPali coastline as we sail north. It gets more rugged as we go….

The area in the photos below is a famous movie filming spot. Harrison Ford & Anne Heche in “Six Days, Seven Nights” and Johnny Depp in one of the “Pirates of the Carribean” films (“Dead Man’s Chest“?) just to name a couple…

More of the NaPali coastline

On the return, during dinner, we caught sight of a pair of breaching Humpback Whales.  Unfortunately, by the time I dug out the good camera, they were done playing and returning to the depths. I may have a couple shots on the SD card from the Kodak camera I started with to post later…

Sunset is approaching, and so is the end of our dinner cruise.

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The largest grower of coffee in the USA. Out produces all of the Kona plantations combined, and has the same rich taste of Hawaii coffee that you get with Kona Coffee, just grown on the rich organic ancient lava fields of Kauasi instead of The Big Island. “Kona Coffee” is really just a great marketing scheme to charge higher prices, not that Kauai Coffee is all that much cheaper….

Beautiful plumeria trees at the Kauai Coffee Visitors Center

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We just finished breakfast at Kalaheo Coffee & Cafe on the south side of the island.

Now we are stopped at the Hawaiian Trading Post about a mile away to do a bit of souvenir shopping.

Then it is off to the Kauai Coffee Company and then check out points west before returning to Port Allen to catch our NaPali Coast Dinner Cruise up and around the western NaPali Coast.

This region can only be seen from the air, by sea or by several hours of intensive hiking and mountain climbing.  We did the air option in 2007, so the dinner cruise option sounded good this time around 😀

We check in at Port Allen at 2:15pm HST for a 2:45 departure on a $2.2 million luxury catamaran yacht that carries 50 people in style!!

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Another “cloud enhanced” sunrise, but still beautiful.  Here are a couple pictures from the phone:

Just as the sun broke the horizon behind the clouds:

After the sun cleared the clouds (it is actually being the tree):

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