Kauai - Day 4

Friday November 16, 2018

We had an even earlier start this morning to drive the 50 minutes to get to our helicopter tour check-in time at 7:15 am. After arriving they promptly told us to take a seat since the safety briefing wouldn't start until 7:45. (major eye roll)

After a quick, but thorough, briefing we piled into a van with 4 other people and were bussed to the helipads. Once there they lined us up all nice and neat in our passenger order, we clipped on our fannypack-style life vests, were walked out to the pad single file and told to stand on the marks with our corresponding seat numbers painted on the ground. We were then ushered up party by party to snap a picture in front of the helicopter, before being boarded one at a time, in a very orderly fashion, according to our seat assignments.

As we entered the helicopter a worker assisted each passenger into his/her seat, helped them strap on the safety belts, and made sure the headphones were in working order so we could hear the pilot's dialogue throughout the flight. I was quite impressed with both the organization and efficiency of the outfit we'd booked through (Sunshine Helicopters), and extremely excited for the flight.

Our pilot, Steve, greeted each passenger as we entered, briefly introduced himself (a former Blackhawk pilot in the Army), and, before I knew it, we were airborne. Having never been in a helicopter before I didn't know quite what to expect; I was totally hooked from the very beginning though. I mean, the take-off alone was awesome! Being used to airplane flights, the ability to just jump straight up into the air was quite exhilarating. The novelty of the flying experience combined with the amazingly picturesque views quite frankly left me in awe.

As John and I were driving to the check-in we were both kind of worried about the weather, things were looking pretty overcast, especially higher up in the mountains. Once in the air though, the overcast sky seemed to make everything look that much prettier. The pilot himself said that he loved flying in that kind of weather because of the diversity it brought to the landscape.

We took off from Lihue and traveled southwest over some pretty cultivated land before entering the Waimea Canyon area and the famed "Jurassic Park Waterfall."

Steve was really good at making multiple passes of all the major features so people on both sides of the aircraft got good views, which I appreciated.

He also kept up a near constant dialogue filled with facts about the island, the views we were seeing, quintessential "dad-jokes," and a few funny anecdotes about previous passengers he'd flown with, the most notable being Halle Berry and the whole Harrison Ford Family!

After flying around the canyon we swooped out of the mountains and out along the Na'Pali Coastline.

Steve would make detours into the island every now and then to get us closer to the jagged green slopes and waterfalls.

At some points I stopped taking pictures so I could just enjoy the moment.

Past the Na'Pali Coast we flew over Hanalei Bay and into the heart of the island, the giant crater of a dormant volcano, Mt. Wai'ale'ale.

All too soon the hour flight was nearing it's close and we flew back across the lowland area to the tune of Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World," landing square on the helipad right as the last note played. I imagine Steve had gotten looooots of practice when it came to timing that baby haha. All in all I could not have been more happier with our experience. Both of us were grinning from ear to ear all throughout the flight and probably for the rest of the day too.

We landed around 9am, and, with such an early morning, hadn't eaten breakfast, so decided to find a place close by to satisfy our hunger. The Kalapaki Beach Hut was only 100 yards away from the Sunshine Helicopters' office and turned out a mean breakfast sandwich and pancakes, which we went halfsies on.

After breakfast we started to head back north trying to decide which beach to hit up for the rest of the day.

We settled on Lydgate Beach Park, but were only there for about an hour before it started to rain. We quickly packed up and made a not-so-quick pitstop at Walmart to replenish our food supplies before heading back to Princeville for the remainder of the day. That evening we ate out at the Kalypso Restaurant in Hanalei. All in all another great day on the island.