After a good night's sleep at Anini Beach and the corresponding sleep-in, I was feeling a little less sickly. Jeff was packed and ready for his afternoon airplane, leaving us with a few hours to further explore the North Shore. I wanted to find Turtle Cove, a lesser known stretch of coast near Princeville with dubious access through an affluent community. We thought we figured out where the trail down the cliff should be but it turned out our guess was incorrect- all we found was mud, a vertical cliff, and mosquitoes. So instead we walked over to Queen's Bath and had a swim in its pool for a bit. Touristy as expected but pleasant enough. We then traversed the coastline east trying to get to the Turtle Cove area. This required a pretty unpleasant downclimb to get to ocean level that Sara and Jeff were not too interested in. I didn't blame them it was not something I really wanted to reverse if I didn't have to. I checked around the corner- no further obstacles. So I opted to go further along the coast leaving the other two to do what they wanted for a couple hours.
This area had one of the more extensive reef platforms I had seen in Kauai, actually making walking pretty easy if you watched your footing. I found the sea cave easily enough, which was an incredibly idyllic spot. Carefully walking through the cave by the light of my phone (so as not to trip on rocks and slumbering sea turtles), I reached the back entrance, also a beautiful spot. Dropping everything but my snorkel gear on a ledge above the water, I waded out to the reef and continued east to where there were a couple deeper water sand and rock coves. And lots of turtles! This was definitely Turtle Cove.
The waves were pretty strong and the resulting visibility was not the best but nevertheless watching about twenty of these turtles go about their business eating sea grass was great. They seemed completely indifferent, even when unexpected waves nearly slammed us into each other. I snorkeled around for a good half hour (would have been more entertaining with Jeff and Sara) and then decided it was nearly time to head back.
Back through the cave I collected my things and found the real access trail easily enough. It turned out to be a lot more obvious from the bottom than the top and I can see how we would have missed finding it. Turned out Sara and Jeff went to Hanalei but I caught up with them soon enough.
View of Turtle Cove from above
After dropping Jeff off at the airport in Lihue, Sara and I opted for a little more North Shore time, driving all the way to Haena for our night's camping. The waves were still somewhat rough but I found a spot with a bunch of turtles at a shallow reef just off the shore. Visibility was poor but the turtle spotting was great. I had a great time continuously watching turtles for nearly an hour. Watching the people on the shore trying to find and snorkel to the turtles (easy but they were making it complicated) was almost as amusing. The day ended with a beautiful sunset. The campground was thankfully quiet apart from the roosters.
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