Only three days in Kauai what were we thinking? So many beaches, so little time! We hit Haena Beach this morning and got in some good sand sliding, river stomping action (once again we forgot our camera so have very little to show for our excursion except for this shot of the Dry Cave across the street.)
We were amazed as we watched our 2 year old friend play in the water. There was a place where the river met the ocean creating a pool about 2 feet deep. Sam would slide off the sandy sides of the river, dunk his head in the water and flip around so quickly that he never got any water in his mouth, nose, or eyes. The natural instinct he has for being safe around the water was a constant source of awe to us. He’s grown up around the ocean in Hawaii his whole life so I guess is comes from being constantly exposed to it at a very young age.
After playing with Sam, his parents came back in from swimming and reported that there was a pod of dolphins about 1/4 mile from shore, so we jumped on it, and swam straight out from shore to the area we had spotted them. By the time we got there they were in a different area, and it’s always a little hard to see where they are jumping from up close because your perspective is so low once you’re in the water.
We were tired from a hard swim with relatively choppy water, so we waited and rested for a while, and eventually the dolphins came back! It was amazing to be so far from shore (the first time swimming so far from shore into open water, rather than within a protected bay) and a little nerve-wracking as well since we didn’t know the shark situation in this area. The day before we had run into a local girl who had her arm completely bitten off by a shark while surfing- she was playing tennis!
Once the dolphins were in the area, I knew we were safe and I calmed down, and we watched them circle around us for at least 15 minutes, before we headed back to shore. Exhilarating!