1-6-2014 The Grand Hyatt, a failed 4 WD beach drive and cruising theNapali coast

I've got to make a pitch for the Grand Hyatt hotel in Kauai.  It is huge (which I usually do not like), pricey ( what isn't on Kauai?) but it is spread over 50 acres so it doesn't seem jammed with people.  This is an aerial view from the helicopter ride we took yesterday.

The rooms are really nice, the ocean views, beach and surf sound are fantastic and the staff is very friendly and helpful.  Plus their pools are really well done.  They have an adults only pool at the highest level of the grounds which flows down into a family pool area, which then flows down to a salt water lagoon down by the beach.  I would like to have a family vacation here someday but it is really a long way from both the US and and from Malaysia. Here are some pictures I took this morning of the hotel grounds.

After taking these pictures this morning we decided to drive our 4 wheel drive jeep down to a beach not too far from the Grand Hyatt.  We didn't make it there.  Although the vehicle seemed to be handling the torturous bumpy road quite well, we weren't having any fun so after about a mile and half I decided to bag it and turn around.  We had seen the beach from the helicopter yesterday and it looked like it would be a fun place to go, but not enough to endure the ride we were having.

In the afternoon we drove to Port Allen for a 5 hour boat ride and dinner along the Napali coast.  We left at 2 p.m. and got back to shore at about 7 p.m.  Port Allen is on the south side of Kauai and the Napali coast is on the northwest side so it was a fair distance to get there on the catamaran.  We were bucking 8 foot swells on the way there with a stout headwind so it was a pretty bumpy ride going out.  On the way back we had the wind and the swells at our back and it was a lot smoother.  We flew over the Napali coast yesterday in the helicopter and it was also nice seeing it from the ocean level. Plus, on this boat ride we saw about a dozen whales, spinner dolphins (they spin in the air when they jump out of the water) and a school of flying fish.

No pictures of the wildlife with the Fuji X100s.  Its great for landscapes, people, street photography, general photography and even macro, but the 23 mm fixed lens doesn't do well for wildlife or sports shots where you really need a telephoto lens.

Tomorrow we are going to the Royal Botanical gardens in the morning and then driving up through Waimea canyon in the afternoon.  By then we will have flown over, boated around and/or driven through every part of Kauai.

Our flight home tomorrow is at 9:50 p.m.  Our original rationale for stopping in Kauai for 3 nights/4 days was to break up the long flight from Australia and rest up.  However, we've done so many things in Kauai, the "rest" part kind of got lost.  But we've had a lot of fun on this beautiful island!