Near-Seal Experience

Today is Friday the 13th, but it was not an unlucky day. Travalon and I went to the Kauai Museum, which had Polynesian artifacts to interest me and World War II artifacts to interest him, then we drove west along the southern shore of Kauai. Our first stop was beautiful Poipu Beach, which has a sheltered area we were wading in, watching crabs scrambling across the volcanic rocks, when the lifeguard announced: "Please stay away from the seal!" We turned to see an actual seal swimming not forty feet away from us. Then it turned around and swam away again, but not before Travalon got a good shot of it which I will try to post at some point. We had lunch at a restaurant called Brennecke's Beach Grill across the street from the beach; we both had ahi tuna and banana drinks. Then we drove to the Kauai Coffee Museum, where we did a walking tour of the plantation grounds and then had iced coffee. A word of warning: their gift shop has lots of great stuff, and we spent too much money there. As we continued west and then north, we saw horses tied up at intervals along the highway, five in all. That was sort of random. Our final destination was Polihale State Park, which was at the end of a long dirt road that kept getting narrower and rougher. Finally we arrived at a beach full of sand dunes, with mountains to the north and off to the southwest, two islands in the distance. The waves were enormous, and we got quite wet wading out into them. The wind was so fierce that it actually pulled on my earring enough to hurt my earlobe. We were enchanted by the idea of a beach named Barking Sands but never did find the road to get to it. The drive back was even more beautiful with the sun setting behind us, as we drove past tons of bougainvilleas and all sorts of other flowers. We ended the evening at an organic restaurant called the Coco Cafe which was so good that I will give them a five-star review on Yelp, if I can remember my password. Their Tahitian lemonade, made with fresh coconuts and lemons, was the most amazing beverage I've ever tasted. So it was a pretty lucky Friday the 13th!

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