At one point this cruise was supposed to call on the island of Kauai.  But like most long cruises itineraries change in the months before sailing, and often during the cruise itself.  By my reckoning, since we booked this cruise 6 port calls and one sail by were dropped and 4 ports, 2 overnight stays and one long port extension were added.  It’s not wise to get attached to one port on an itinerary because any number of things, weather, civil unrest, a pandemic, or in one case the bubonic plague, can change things.

So, when Holland America canceled the call on Kauai, I was disappointed but thought of all the other cool places we’d be visiting.  

When we skipped Midway to get an ill patient back to Honolulu a day early it opened a possibility.  We would be in Honolulu for three days. I never plan an independent tour that must leave early on a day we enter a country that requires face to face customs inspection (The US, Japan, the UK, for instance) because I may be delayed.  I don’t schedule a long tour where our return may be delayed on a last day in a port.  But with a free middle day in Honolulu, we got up early, took a flight to Kauai, rented a car and returned on an evening flight, knowing if that flight were canceled, we had the whole next day to meet the ship.  Two plane tickets, cab to and from the airport, car rental, state park admissions and a couple of cokes cost less than a Holland America 8-hour tour.    

We wanted to visit Kauai beause the Russian America Company under Alexander Baranof had sent people from Sitka to establish three posts on Kauai.  Fort Elizabeth still had remains of a wall in a state park.   I’ll have a whole post dedicated to Fort Elizabeth once I get pictures sorted and figure out a way to present conflicting views of history.  But there is a lot more on Kauai than the remains of what may or may not have been a Russian fort (those conflicting views).   After visiting the state park formally known as Russian Fort Elizabeth State Historical Park (those conflicting views) we set off on the Waimea Canyon Road that leads through Waimea Canyon State Park, over the wet/dry divide on the island and dead ends at Kokee State Park.

The Waimea canyon is on the arid side of the island.  As we climb the vegetation gets greener and the canyon, with its different striations of rock exposed, is deeper, 2500 feet deep. 

When we cross the divide to the rainy side Waimea Canyon State Park gives way Kokee State Park.  The vegetation becomes lush.  The road ends at two lookouts where we can see the North Shore along the Napali Coast, with waterfalls and mountains with steep fluted walls.

Fort Elizabeth will be my next post.