Kauai

Kauai Photo Album

We just returned on Sunday from our week in Kauai with my parents and my brother Josh. It was a really full and fun trip. Kauai is amazing and there is so much to see and do. Since Josh, Mike and I are all certified divers we did a lot of underwater exploration and got 6 dives in. As you will see in our photos, we also did some sightseeing, sunning and snorkeling.

This was our first week long, distance trip with my family since Mike and I have been married. I can say that after many trips together on our own it was nice to spend the time with Josh and my parents. They are adventuresome and easy going. It definitely made the trip more dynamic all around to travel with them. Since we have another large family trip coming up with Mike's whole family I felt that this was a good warm up to traveling tropically with family members. Enjoy the slid show (if you click the sunset photo it will take you to a site where you can play a large format slide show of all 160 of the pictures).

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Dive Stories from the trip:
I have to add that there were 2 blunder stories that I must share. To make fun of myself…since at the time they were TOTALLY UNFUNNY to me and now I can laugh at myself over them. Both revolve around diving.

I got certified to dive with my brother who I call “B”. I always called myself the weakest link of the class because it took me longer to do things and I had a few fears to get over too. Just wanted to preface the story with this tidbit as this was the first time I was diving with my brother since the class and did we our certification dives separately, his in the hood canal in February and me in Mexico. See, weakest and wimpiest link.

Story 1
We went on 2 boat dives on our 1st day in Kauai. The 1st was a deep dive to 90ft. At this depth you must be really careful with your decompression times and you must do a safety stop on your way to the surface after the dive. All 3 of us had bought new scuba gear for this trip. I’d not used my BC ‘buoyancy compensator” yet and it had an integrated weight system in it to keep me that deep underwater instead of a weight belt, which I was use to.

So, the story goes…we’re down swimming around at 90ft. and about 2/3rds through the dive I notice my brother is not with the group. The visibility is about 40 feet so since I can’t see him I start freaking out. I motion to Mike that my brother is gone. He did not seem to be concerned. I’m thinking…my brother has not been diving recreationally before, this is not good. He is out somewhere by himself. What if something has happened? I freak out. 1st thing NOT to do while diving…freak out. I start spinning myself around seeing where my bro is. I knock one of my weights out of the pouch, then the weight of the missing weight off centers me and the other weight falls out. This is not good…because it causes me to start shooting for the surface “almost like a rocket”. Mike sees me “thankfully” and comes to my rescue but he cannot keep me from floating to the surface. On the way up one of my fins comes off from all my kicking to stay under water. The group said it looked like we were having a garage sale on the ocean floor with all my dive gear. Anyway, turns out my brother’s air had run low and he went up to the boat just a few minutes before all this happens. Everyone seemed to know this but me. The whole thing was very traumatic but thank God…Mike and I were fine. We did not struggle with decompression sickness but it sure was scary. I learned that my brother is a really good diver and he motioned to me every time after when he was going to the surface.

Story 2 (this one will be a little funnier)
We could not do multiple days of boat diving since it was about $150 per person per day. So we found some shore dives to do instead. Our favorite dive was Koloa Landing and we dove there 3 times before wanting to find another spot to try. So we went to Poi’pu Beach Park, which was a nice beach where you entered through the waves. Now, dive gear is heavy, like around 50lb and you have to get all of your gear on before entering the water. You put your fins on once you get out into deep enough water. So we wade out into the surf and of course, weakest link me, I get toss into a big wave and lose my mask and snorkel. Mike and Josh got me out of the water, which took some doing, since once you fall over in the waves with all that gear on you can’t stand up easily. But my mask was gone. I was crushed, a $100 mask lost. We stood on the beach while Mike and Josh looked for it. For about 20 minutes with all the beach dwellers watching us. It could not be found. That was going to be the end of diving for me on the trip. No mask, no diving. Right before we left the beach, Mike spotted the mask. He swam out and finally got it. Hurrah!! But the mood was set…no diving that day. Waves were just too rough for me. I had had it.

A few point I want to make. God is good and really protected us novice divers on this trip. Diving is really worth it. Snorkeling is fun but diving is amazing. So don’t get the wrong idea because of my trauma diving stories. Last, my brother and Mike are safe, strong divers and really made the trip for me. I could not and would not have done it with out them. They rock!