When life gives you lemons, make lemonade…or in the case of the islands, Passion Fruit, Orange, and Guava make POG…but we digress. Either way, it isn’t difficult to turn a sour day sweet when you’re staying in Kaua’i.

To start the day, Billy wanted to explore the Northern part of the Island and check out Tunnels Beach. His hope was to make a snorkeling reservation, and maybe even see some sea turtles. Unfortunately, we couldn’t outrun the rainy weather of the Northern shore.

Per usual, we started our day with a sunny, tropical breakfast at the Illima Terrace. As we departed the beautiful weather of the Southern shore, we made sure to take the top down on our neon blue Jeep Wrangler to take it all in. About halfway up the coast, however, that beautiful weather turned sour. As the rain began to pour into the car, Billy immediately made a quick stop to put up the top…or so we thought. Neither one of us had operated this type of car before, and the salt water corrosion on the zippers made this a particularly difficult task. After about 10 minutes of wrestling canvas over the car body, we were on our way. When the speed limit climbed to 40, we began noticing that the car began to sound like a wind tunnel. To our surprise the top flew open. Luckily, we both reached up and caught the top at the same time. We were able to pull over again and finally fasten the top for good after another 5 minutes.

The weather continued to worsen as we climbed North, but we remained optimistic as we continued on. After an hour and a half of driving through winding roads, construction, and torrential downpours…we finally arrived at Tunnels. We were about to get out of the car when the rain started again. Was it following us?

We had to make a game time decision and the beach wasn’t an option. We weighed our options and decided to explore even further North. Using our Kaua’i Revealed guide books, we found a quaint restaurant in the valley below. After all…we needed to do something since we travelled so far.

We travelled on through the mountain, over a one lane wooden bridge and over to Hanalei Valley. Finally, we discovered the Hanalei Dolphin Restaurant. This dive restaurant is attached to a fresh seafood market located on the banks of the Hanalei River. We figured the seafood HAS to be good. Well it was actually phenomenal. River views aside, the fish tacos and Marlin Steak sandwich were to die for. Unfortunately the rain followed us there as well.

As we headed back South, the rain let up and the drive was actually beautiful. We managed to stop at the Hanalei Lookout for some pictures and continued through Princeville, Lehue, and Poipu as we returned to the hotel around 1:30.

Upon our return, we learned that a beachside cabana was still available for rent at our resort. We decided to lay down a deposit and veg on the beach for another 4 hours. As we enjoyed fruity drinks and watching several surfers wipe out…this day actually ended up being one of our more relaxing days we’ve had (which was much needed).

To cap the evening, we had 7:30 reservations at Tidepools Restaurant. They sat us at a table over a koi pond as we we dined on some superb Surf and Turf. We watched the ocean sky turn from orange, to purple, to black. Who would have thought Day 3 would have ended like this?

The view from our cabana…