Hawaiian Islands Cruise - Kauai - Day 2

For our second day in Kauai, before we left home we'd scheduled a helicopter tour. By booking directly with the company, the cost was $210 each, including transfers. The cruise excursion for the same flight and transfers was $349 each – that’s quite a markup!

Kauai's tourist information website describes the diversity of this island's landscape:

Apparently, some areas of Kauai have more than 400 inches (1016 cm) of rainfall each year. Most days it rains somewhere on the island, and this gives it the lush greenery. However, we were fortunate to have excellent weather for our flight, with only a few minutes of rain.

Our initial view

Our flight was 55 minutes, and we were pleased to be in the front two seats of the helicopter, with me next to the pilot. It was reassuring to know that our pilot was trained as an evacuation specialist and had flown to do such things as hurricane rescue missions. Our flight was a piece of cake for him!

We flew over tropical forests, coffee plantations, cornfields, waterfalls, along the jagged northern Napali coastline, and into the bowels of a dormant volcano. Amazing views! I'll just stream photos now, to give you an idea of the variety in the landscape.

The grey/white lines in the centre are waterfalls

Napali coastline, Pacific ocean

We were advised to wear dark colours for the flight, to cut down on reflection from the glass. On that note, can you notice anything in this photo?

My white running shoe in the lower left area of the photo! A Bigfoot sighting maybe?

A friend of ours also did this Kauai helicopter tour about a month earlier. She took the above photo of the north coast. Here's our photo of the same area.

As you can see, she had nicer weather than us that day! That afternoon, we sailed along this rugged northern Napali coastline and it was a bit of a rough ride, with 15-foot swells.

Most of this northern coastline is only accessible by air or sea. We had done both in the same day! We felt fortunate to have had this great experience.

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Hawaiian Islands Cruise - December 10 to 17
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Part 1 - Honolulu & Maui
Part 2 - The Big Island - Hilo
Part 3 - The Big Island - Kona
Part 4 - Kauai - Day 1 
Part 5 - Kauai - Day 2