Kauai - Day 3 - South Shore

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Spouting Horn

Woke up early again, but lay around watching “The Untouchables”. I made breakfast sandwiches and we hopped in the car and headed down to the south end of the island. We stopped at the Kukui Grove shopping center outside of Puhi so that Jeff could get some supplies---sunglasses and shorts. Then we headed to the Po’ipu beach. After parking and hitting the beach, we noticed an area that was cordoned off. There sunning itself on the beach was a large monk seal. They are endangered, which is why the park staff put up the barrier. We took a photo of him. We later learned that there are only 33 monk seals that reside on/around Kaua'i, so is was pretty remarkable to see one. We got settled in at the beach and Jeff realized that he didn’t have his swim trunks, so he headed off to purchase a pair while I sunbathed. He got back and played in the water for a bit. We were lounging on our blankets when a “clucker” (that’s what Jeff coined the prolific roosters here, as in, “Hey, don’t hit that clucker!”) paid us a very up close and personal visit on the beach. We also saw a humpback whale out on the horizon, which is apparently pretty common from October through May. I got some photos of him, you can just see the silhouette, but you can tell it’s a whale. We sunned for a bit longer and then went and played in the surf for a while. Then we wandered up to the nearest hotel bar and got a beer. After sunning for just a bit more, we packed up our stuff and were about to swim/wade out to the tombolo but the damn monk seal had relocated over there so it was off limits. We got in the car and headed out to Spouting Horn. We got a wee video of it shooting water 50 feet into the air and groaning. Jeff took a picture of the surrounding lava shelf. It was pretty cool. We drove back, stopping in Kaloa to do some souvenir shopping. We scored some kick ass ice cream (Kona coffee flavored). We drove back to the hotel and discovered that we both had tragic sunburns. Jeff had decided that he didn’t need any sunscreen (men!), and while I had loaded up on SPF 30, I missed entire sections of my body. We crashed for a couple of hours when we got back to the hotel and then we headed off for dinner at the nearby Thai restaurant.

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Photos

Clucker on the Beach
...and I wanna touch it.

What are the odds?
Only 33 Monk seals reside in the waters surrounding Kauai.

Humpack on the Horizon
**Click to enlarge**

Humpback on the Horizon 2
**Click to enlarge**

Comments

[Lysa]

kitty on the floor
now even my ghost is dead.