October 14, 2024 Nawiliwili Day 2

    A brief rain shower passed just before 8 a.m. leaving behind a lovely rainbow which we could see as we ate breakfast up on Deck 9 Lido. The temperature was 24°C and a NE breeze about 15 km per hour.

   On the news - the Europa Clipper blasted off from Kennedy Space Center (near Orlando, FL) on its way to Jupiter’s fourth moon, Europa. The spacecraft is scheduled to arrive near Jupiter on April 11, 2030.

    Today’s excursion was Grand Canyon of the Pacific. There was a bit of mist as we started at 9 a.m. Yesterday our excursion was to the east coast and today it was to the west coast. The drive was 37 km to the town of Waimea, before taking the road to Waimea Canyon. En route the first stop was 10 minutes to see and hear the Spouting Horn blowhole near the town of Kōloa. The price of gas on Kauai at most stations was $5.499 US which is about $1.94 Cdn per litre. As usual there were many chickens wandering around the area. There are tens of thousands of roosters and hens ranging free on all of the large Hawaiian islands. The Hawaiian word for chicken is moa.  As we continued the route northwest at a roundabout, there was a statue of the Hawaiian hand signal meaning “Hang Loose”.

    We passed a 4,100 acre coffee plantation with fields of neat rows of two metre high coffee bushes. We had a ten minute stop at the Hanapēpē Valley Lookout. We passed one of the former sugar cane processing plants, none of which are in operation now. We drove through Waimea, where we later stopped for a “scatter” lunch. 

    Then it was a 25 minute climb on the road through the valley then up the ridge to Waimea Canyon, the "Grand Canyon of the Pacific”, Lookout. It is 3,400 feet above sea level and its was a pleasant 24°C and just a gentle breeze. The view was into the 2,857 foot deep gorge. It is two miles across in places and 14 miles long. The red colour of some cliffs is from iron oxide. The gorge runs east/west across the island of Kauai. There is a river at the bottom.

   Just as we were leaving the canyon a drizzle started but it only lasted about 15 minutes and had stopped by the time we arrived in Waimea for lunch. There was an assortment of takeout restaurants including the Shrimp Shed, Hawaiian Taco and where we bought lunch Coconut Corner. There features sign advertised Pineapple Whip ice cream which we purchased. It was also a produce stall and they had apple bananas at two for a dollar. They were about 11 cm long with a thinner skin than a banana, but the texture of one and tasted a little sweeter. We walked to the statue of Captain James Cook whose first landing in the Hawaiian islands was at Waimea. It was time to return to the ship. There was a light rain as we travelled back to Nawiliwili. It stopped before we reached the ship. The whole journey was a little less than

five hours.

   We dropped off the backpack in our stateroom and then walked a mile around Deck 3 Promenade before climbing to Deck 12 for coffees at the Explorations Café where we watched a sailboat in the harbour.

   The captain’s announcement at 4:30 p.m. stated Koningsdam will start casting off shortly. She was scheduled to depart at 5 p.m.  Passengers were invited to the Deck 5 bow to watch the sail-away. ms Koningsdam will be covering 232 nautical miles overnight to arrive at Kailua-Kona harbour in the morning. The ship will be anchored about 7:30 a.m. and guests will be tendered to the port. Guests with four and five star loyalty status will not have to use the ticket system but have priority to board the tenders to get to shore. 

   We were the last ones to arrive at our table for dinner.  Graham & Suzanne and Jo and Mike went to the Marriott Hotel gardens today. 

   There was a food sculpture of a turkey at the dining room entrance, to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving. A turkey dinner was one of the menu items. There was two slices of white turkey meat, one slice of dark turkey meat, roasted Brussels sprouts, dressing, mashed potato, whole berry cranberry sauce and cooked carrot. On the dessert menu was pumpkin pie. Most of the table chose the turkey dinner.

    This evening on the World Stage, the vocalist was Janien Valentine. 


Total steps: 11,944

today’s excursion was Grand Canyon of the Pacific

the Spouting Horn blowhole
one of the thousands of roosters
the Hawaiian hand signal meaning “Hang Loose”
the Hanapēpē Valley Lookout
former sugar cane processing plant

Waimea Canyon




lunch at Coconut Corner
Pineapple Whip ice cream and apple bananas
statue of Captain James Cook
food sculpture of a turkey at the dining room entrance


There may not be any more post until we are back in Vancouver on October 22

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