A tale of trying to embrace the moments that define your life...
One of the many benefits of my job is the opportunity to take advantage of doing the various activities and excursions available here in Kauai. I happened to have Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off work because of how the holidays fell this year and I had no plans for Christmas Eve. I thought I would go out whale watching on the south shore...but when I called they said they only had availability on the raft snorkel and whale watching excursion out on the Napali Coast. Mind you, on a catamaran and in the summer, this is one of my favorite excursions, but in a raft in the winter and with a big swell coming in I was not sure if this is how I wanted to spend my Christmas Eve...but YOLO kicked in and I scheduled my excursion in spite of my fears...
I am not a confident ocean swimmer, I enjoy the luxuries and comfort of a large catamaran, I enjoy a restroom on my boat, and the idea of being in a raft on the Napali with a big swell was terrifying. And up at 5:00am and driving across the island I was consumed by all of these thoughts...Good news, cute and charming crew...bad news, this is really a small raft, only 9 passengers and we all have to sit on the rubber side of raft and hold onto a rope so as to not fall off the boat into the ocean. Did I mention there is a swell that came in today? And off we went, out of the small boat harbor in Port Allen out into the ocean on a rubber raft. Almost immediately we saw spinner dolphins. There would be wind later in the day, so the captain, Manu, made the decision for us to snorkel early in the trip, so we stopped to snorkel on the way up. Last time I snorkeled on Napali I couldn't stay in the water very long as there was too much motion in the ocean...but I was willing to try again and I jumped into the water and snorkeled all around, saw lots of beautiful fish, the water was nice and clear, and I had such a wonderful time being in the water.
Now off to Napali, dodging waves and riding them, thrilling and exciting and glorious. It was sunny and warm, and I felt exhilarated, and at that moment I realized I had a topic about which to write again...#yolo.
Napali Coast, but coming in and out of swell and waves...Manu was carefully gaging the waves and swell to see if he could get us into any caves and we finally managed to get into two sea caves...a catamaran can't do that! The cathedrals of the Napali are even more spectacular and awesome from the raft. Heading back we found whales and sat and had sandwiches on the raft watching whales dance.
What a fantastic way to spend a day! What an amazing and blessed way to spend a Christmas Eve day...#napalicoast #sunshine #whalewatching #princessdidgood #yolo
