Wailua Falls Saturday - Day 2 (part 2) After our flight, we had about 2 1/2 hours before we needed to be in Eleele for a cruise, so we first stopped at Wailua Falls, one of the easiest Kauai waterfalls to drive to and see from the road. The 173 foot falls was part of the opening credits of the television series Fantasy Island. Discovering that the first restaurant we were considering was closed on weekends, we drove on to Waimea to have lunch at the Shrimp Station, a roadside seafood shack serving shell-on sautéed shrimp, fried shrimp, shrimp tacos and shrimp burgers to be eaten outside. We ordered the $15.95 Got Garlic Shrimp and the Sweet Chili Garlic Shrimp with boiled red potatoes. When I picked up the paper plates and saw the potatoes, I thought I wouldn't be eating them, but the shrimp came with lots of extremely delicious sauce and the potatoes were wonderful covered in the sauce. This simple meal was my favorite food of the trip.
We followed lunch with a walk up the street to Jojo's Shave Ice and split a dakine sized "South Shore" with pineapple and coconut sauces on shave ice over macadamia ice cream and topped with haupia cream (coconut pudding). The sauces were great, but I've never been a shave ice fan and after eating the part with much of the sauce near the top, scrapped off the ice to get to the ice cream. For $7.25 including tax, this was a large serving, even though it was the smaller of the two sizes they offer. This definitely was better than the shave ice I have had at home, but I would still rather have a good ice cream.
With a few more minutes to kill we stopped at Hanapepe Swinging Bridge, a 172' pedestrian suspension bridge. We arrived at Capt Andy's in Eleele a little before the 1:45PM check in for the 2:30PM departure of the Classic Na Pali Sunset Dinner Sail. It was a good thing we were a little early since Andy's modest parking lot was full and it took a while to find other parking. After making our way back to the lot to check in as they required using the code on the parking lot sign, we were instructed by the prompts to return to the office for what was remaining of the briefing for our cruise. It would have been nice if they had told us to go to the office to begin with instead of the parking lot so we wouldn't have been late. The cruise was on a 55' catamaran which headed west going around the island toward the Na Pali Coast. We liked the captain and crew, but his spiel wasn't that entertaining and he was often inaccurate about things which I already knew. It left me un-trusting of the things I didn't know. We saw our first whales within a few minutes and saw many during the cruise, although we didn't see any of them very well, just a glimpse or a water spout. At the far end of the route, the mainsail was hoisted as a signal that the bar was open and food was being served. The sail was left up for most of the return, but was never used for propulsion. The chicken and beef served were reasonably good for what is essentially airline food, but this was our least exciting meal of the trip. The bar consisted of soft drinks, juice, beer & wine and their version of a Mai Tai. The return trip was rougher than the way out. Passengers had a harder time staying on their feet and some got sea sick. The front of the boat took on quite a bit of water and some of the splashes even reached us in the stern. There was a brief stop for sunset, before returning to the harbor, where our shoes were returned. Only the crew were permitted shoes on the trip.
When we returned to Hotel Coral Reef, the monthly "First Saturday" was taking place in Old Kappa Town a half mile away so we stopped to check out some local food and crafts. We had a nice chat with one women and bought a couple of fruit breads from her, which I found rather tasteless. We were much happier with the cinnamon rosette pretzels from Elena's Gourmet Kauai Pretzel. though I wouldn't call them pretzels but call them cinnamon crisps. We also bought an attractive Hawaiian dress for our 15 month old granddaughter, buying it from the woman who made them.
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