Surfergolf or Surfershop

Picture perfect day

Without a big activity planned for the day, I initially planned on Surfergolf II. In the morning, I found Chava (see earlier blog post) and for $20 got a surf board for 3 hours. I also confirmed an earlier thought that Chava will say anything to make things sound better than they are. Examples: I checked out the surf before I found Chava and saw that it was smaller and less consistant than Monday. But one of the first things Chava said was, "It's much bigger today." Then while taking a break, during which time the surf had dropped to almost nothing, Chava remarked, "It's high tide so the surf will start getting better now." Unfortunately, you can't BS a guy with an iPhone who's naturally skeptical. Sure enough, high tide was 90 minutes away, which meant it wasn't getting better any time soon. He also recommended that I stay away from the next break east, "It's only two feet deep and has lots of sea urchins." So as soon as he left, I went to the next break and surfed some nice waves for another 30 minutes. In the grand scheme, it's no big deal that Chava "Tells it like it's not," I also lied to him when I said that I'd been surfing a dozen times.
While I surfed, Luella made plans for the rest of our afternoon. So instead of Surfergolf, I ended up with SurferShop as we headed to Kapaa to shop for tchotchkes, gifts, and souvenirs. Alas, being the good husband, off we went. We found some good stuff. One of the more interesting places was a bamboo store that sold bamboo timber of any size for crafts all the way up to construction size timbers. I thought that was cool. I could easily imagine Luella designing some piece of furniture that I would have to build out of bamboo. Sadly, this place is much further than our local Home Depot.

Banyan tree's outside of Keiko's Paradise

We finished the day at Keiko's Paradise. According to our guide book, this place is either loved or loathed for it's over the top fake polynesian decor. Having been weaned on the Royal Hawaiian in Laguna Beach, I loved it. I even had the ribs and chicken just like the RH in LB. We had a great table with a view of some spectacular banyan trees out front. The Hula Pie for desert could literally feed a family of six (as the next table demonstrated). Fortunately, they had a "Chef's Bar Menu" size that "only" had about as many calories as my LoseIt app said I could eat the whole day. You're not in Kauai often enough, so LoseIt had to be spurned.