Our first morning out in Kauai we went to Hanalei for a quick visit to the beach. It is a sweet little beach town, unlike anything on the Big Island. Hanalei Beach was crescent shaped and miles long. There were a ton of surfers sitting on their boards waiting for a gentle wave to roll in.
There had been a lot of rain a few days earlier so the water was brown from run-off (the soil there is a rich reddish color). Jim and I decided to do our usual mile long swim, and we headed off in the general direction of the pier. We couldn’t see a thing, not even our own hands in front of us! It was completely brown, but we kept going because we were under the impression that it was just dirt. Unfortunately, we read later in the paper that day that the island had some problems with sewage getting into the water, so at the end of the day we didn’t know if we’d really swam in sewage water or not, but we took some Vitamin C just in case!
First Kauai lesson: if the ocean is so brown you can’t see two inches in front of you, you probably shouldn’t keep swimming! Lesson noted. Don’t worry Kauai, it takes more than than to ruin our vacation.