2018 Kauaʻi Trip Report Part 7: Shipwreck Beach

To celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary, we took a trip to the Hawaiian island of Kauaʻi (read the previous parts here). After a busy day visiting Waimea Canyon, we decided to take it easy for the next day…

Saturday, July 7, 2018

Once again, we were up just a little after 7:00 to begin our morning routine. We could still feel some of the physical effects of the Waimea Canyon hike from the previous day, but it was not too bad.

We headed down to the Ilima Terrace restaurant for our morning breakfast. Yes, we were in a rut of going to the same place every day. But it was already paid for, we enjoyed it, and it was much closer than any of our other options, so we were fine with it. This time, the waffles were back instead of the pancakes. I was starting to see an alternating pattern here. And of course, we both got lots of fresh pineapple, too.

Breakfast with a view

After breakfast, we stopped by the concierge desk to finalize our reservation for the Sunday night luau, since I had forgotten to do that the previous day. There really was not much to it since I had asked them to charge it to our room. But we did get the confirmation ticket that we would need to take with us when we went.

As we walked through the lobby area, we stopped to look at a piece of stone with something carved in it. It turned out to be a piece cut from the rock ledge where the hotel now sits. This carving is thought to be over 700 years old. That was cool to see! Just another example of history being everywhere. By the way, this carving inspired the stick figure looking people on the logo created for this trip report, in case you are wondering.

Ancient artwork

Modern artwork. Although I have no idea what it means.

Right about that time, it started to rain. I figured it was just a passing shower and would not last all that long. We were interested to see that they roped off the open area of the lobby to keep people out of it. That made sense in some ways, because you would get wet if you went out there. We suspected, however, that it was more of a safety precaution than anything. The sloping walkways probably become slippery in the rain, and they would not want anyone getting hurt. But it was interesting to see that they just put up ropes. Still no doors were closed, and the whole lobby was still open.

A look down the hallway of the hotel. If you look closely, you can see raindrops in the open area at the end of the hall.

To pass the time during the rain, we looked around in the shops for a bit. Also, we took some time to see the parrots that are in the open area of the lobby during the day. They were able to get to the edge of their perches and be under the edge of the roof so that they did not get too wet during the rain.

Just a few of the interesting flowers and plants found around the hotel

When the rain had stopped, we went to the car to get our shoes that we had left in there the previous day. They were still covered with the red dirt that is everywhere on Kauaʻi, a bit of a souvenir from our grand outdoor adventure. We went to our room to brush our teeth, but our room was being cleaned at the time. So instead we went to a part of the building that was near the pool area to sit and wait. It was not a big deal, because we did not have any place in particular to be. In fact, we had decided to take it easy for much of the day to give us time to recover from our hike. My knees in particular were still not happy about stairs, especially going down stairs.

Waiting on the cleaning lady to finish

Not a photo of a chicken this time around, but instead a photo of a painting of a chicken. Chickens are art, you know.

We tried our room again, and the cleaning lady was finished this time. While we were there, it rained some more, so we enjoyed some time on our lanai waiting for the rain to pass. We enjoyed watching a man climb some of the trees that edged the parking lot in the distance to trim them. The trees looked very thin and flimsy, but he did not have any trouble climbing up in them. I guess he had gotten a lot of practice at it along the way. We were also interested to see that the rain did not slow him down any. He just kept right on climbing and cutting.

I was also interested to see that the mountain we could see off in the distance had vanished entirely. The palm trees in front of the mountain were there, but the mountain itself was nowhere in sight. I know it was still there, but it was covered by clouds, mist, and rain. It was actually pretty cool to see it not be there, almost as if David Copperfield had pulled off another one of his famous illusions.

The rain stopped again, and a quick check of the radar on my phone showed that it had probably ended for a while. We walked out to Shipwreck Beach in front of the hotel to enjoy a walk that was hopefully on level ground. At least that was what my knees were hoping for.

Sunny day, sweeping the clouds away…

Walking along the pathway beside the beach

More waves crashing against rocks. It never gets old to me.

Just some more waves

One more beach photo

But just past the beach was a large, rocky cliff, and we had seen people up there on it. We decided to give it a try to check out the view. That did mean a little bit of climbing to get up to that elevation, but it was worth it. From the cliff, we had a great overview of the Grand Hyatt hotel and the beach down below. Plus, we had a great view of the Pacific Ocean, too. It seemed to go on for quite a way in its blueness, always in motion, with white waves dotting the blue tones here and there.

While we enjoyed the views of the hotel and the beach, we really enjoyed the views of the ocean waves crashing into the rocks down below. The waves would crash loudly and with great force, sending big plumes of white foam and water high into the air. It was one of those fascinating scenes of nature that we could have watched for a very long time.

Rocks and water

Same water, different rocks

We moved farther on down away from the hotel to get a different perspective of things. In different places, the rocks would jut out farther into the water, and we explored some of those points, looking back on the small bays that were present in between the rocks. The waves would roll up into those bays and crash against the rocks that were there. We loved it.

A fisheye view, just for fun

We had thought about pressing on along the trail that ran along the shore. Along that trail is the Makauwahi Cave, which is said to be an interesting sight to see. In fact, it was used in the movie Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides as the entrance to the Fountain of Youth. But the trail was a couple of miles long and looked to be pretty rough. Besides that, a couple of websites said that you have to crawl on your hands and knees for a distance to enter the cave. I decided that was above my skill level for the day, so we did not go much further than where we were. But we still enjoyed the view for quite a while.

Because the rain had ended and the sun was out, it was getting rather warm out. So we decided to take advantage of all of that. We went back to our room and changed for swimming, and then we went to the activities desk to get some towels and wristbands for the pool. The saltwater lagoon was once again not very crowded, and so we enjoyed some time just lounging in the water or swimming. I did most of the lounging, and Laura did most of the swimming. That is the way it usually works for us.

All of that swimming was making us hungry! After thinking about our lunch options and the big breakfast we had eaten once again that morning, we decided to get something from one of the hotel shops. We each got a sandwich and a drink, and we got some chips to share. We took our food purchases up to our room, and we had a delightful lunch while sitting on the lanai and enjoying the view. Who says lunch has to be at an expensive restaurant to be good?

But that is not all, because the day does not end with lunch. Check back soon for more of this day from the 2018 Kauaʻi Trip Report!