I mean beginners should be allowed to dive, but Dive Kauai sucks at handing them along with non beginners, which makes them a very poor choice for advanced divers. Of course they failed to admit that when I called and explicitely enquired about it, being happier to take my money at the expensive of a near guaranteed bad experience, but just for harboring Nick, the passive aggressive lying boat driver, that's a definitely a reason not to go with them as long as he works there.

Day1: 2 Boat Dives and 4 shore dives (downgraded to 2) with Dive Kauai

cleaning station for turtles, there were 6 or 7 sleeping there

Afternoon was supposed to have 2 shore dives and 2 night dives, but the complete beginners I was paired with ruined the first dive, and then the guide said he didn't think night dives would be so good due to silt (that, he may have been correct on). Diving from the jetty was not super easy, kind of rocky and not easy to navigate, but the turtles were happy to come up for a rest:

Day2: 2 Boat Dives with Dive Kauai

Oh yeah, now I remember that the dive guide seemed a bit green and got anxious when I got just a bit ahead of him or went to check a small hole within easy reach of him, when he only had 2 divers to keep track of. Sigh... But that confirms what I was saying that Dive Kauai is definitely not for advanced divers.

Day3: 2 DPV Shore Dives

Despite all the crap and bad feelings from Nick, the DPV dives were lots of fun, even if the DPVs themselves had worrisome failure modes, including no maser shutoff of wrist deadman switch. I was even told that sometimes they get stuck on, that's not good... Thankfully they did not for me and they were definitely fun.

Before the dives, a dive Kauai manager/coordinator also came to meet me that morning to apologize about the mess created the previous day, which was nice of him and honestly I was ok enough walking away after that and burrying the hatchet, except passive agressive backstabbing Nick felt it would be good to call the next company I was going with to badmouth me and try to convince them not to dive with me, oh nice... So yeah, after that Nick made sure I let everyone know on every medium available to avoid him and Dive Kauai. I hope he gets fired....

Day4: 6 Dives with Fathom Five

the guide was good and gave us a good briefing on what we could see

not hard to find turtles, they are literally everywhere

I finally found where the lobsters were hiding in Sheraton Caves, took me a while to find the spot again

For the dusk/night dives, we were 4 divers, plus the guide:

Then, I found this beautiful Stary Night Octopus, but that also ended the dive as it got a bit too friendly with us:

One other thing I also found out was that of course the Hawaii islands are not cheap anymore (only the flight is cheap), but Kauai especially seemed especially expensive. Some tours like a simple garden and chocolate tour, would ask for $140 per person (!).

Anyway, here is the map:

after landing, had a quick drive to Wailua Falls while waiting for the flight time:

walked around a bit to burn time

quickly found a friend :)

happiest cat in the world

Day 1: Partial Island Flight

rode copilot

same waterfall

Smith Family Luau

pretty almost viewsonic birds

yummy drinks

Day 2: Diving and sunset dinner

Day 3: Diving and kayaking to hidden waterfall

The kayaking was all fun and good until it started pissing rain :) then again the waterfall was wet too :)

that was me at the bottom :)

I look happy :)

I then had to deal with the dive Kauai and their lying passive aggressive boat driver, Nick, who did his best to ruin my diving by showing how much of an lying p. he could be. Dive Kauai, only barely worthwhile for beginners, was totally not worth it. At least I'm making proper notes this time to make sure I never go back to those people (turns out I had old notes from 2008 saying I also picked them and regretted it, sigh...)

Despite the time wasted by them, had a bit of time to check out an evening art festival at Hanapepe:

Day 4: Diving, McBryde+Allterton Gardens, Koloa Zipline

McBryde+Allterton Gardens were nice, but you could only see one of them as part of a timed tour, which was not available every day, making the visit not as easy as it should have been. It was a very nice tour, though:

happy ducks :)

hungry, even :)

After the park, spouting horn was right there:

Day 4: Koloa Zipline

Then, almost a sunset:

Day 5: Full Day of Diving (6 dives)

This was all nice and good until I let an octopus climb on my hand while it was feeding at night, and it decided to cut my finger, inject me with its paralysing poison. Ended up in not the best ER on a sunday night while they tried to figure out whether I had pieces of octopus beak left in my finger that had to be dug out, or not. Not the best night (was over around 03:00).

Day 6: Waimea Canyon

then it was time to drive up to Waimea Canyon:

the famous red dirt

beautiful scenery

After an mostly unimpeded quick drive down, and rental car brakes that didn't fade, and time for a few quick stops before the 2nd Luau:

Day 6: Aulii Beach Luau

how to open coconuts

yum

Day 7: North Island Tour to Road's End: Princeville Botanical Gardens

Day 7: Princeville Botanical Gardens

Day 7: Limuhali Botanical Gardens

After that, there was some time for a slower drive back and stop at a few places on the way:

more shaved ice with ice cream

Day 7: Kilauea, the northmost point of all of Hawaii, and Nenes

babies!

unfortunately the tip is now open only certain days with advance tickets, WTF?

one used to be able to just drive there :(

boobie!

Day 8: Kauai Museum

Day 8: Kauai Plantation Railway and Rhum Tasting

And that was it, time to fly home

we went to see if it wanted to be friendly (divemaster hand in that picture)

I let it climb on my hand (I did not grab it, it just climbed calmly). But what happened is that while it was on me, it decided I tasted good and cut my hand open to try and start to eat me. It was pretty clear what happened, so I passed the octopus to the dive guide and other divers pet it, not knowing what happened (I never pet octopus, not sure if they like it, but I love to touch their suckers which they use to smell you and decide what you are):

it was calm and friendly and happily climbed on other people's hands after mine

It used its beak to cut my finger open and injected me with its poison meant to paralyse preys. And yes, it did hurt:

doesn't quite show but the finger was much bigger due to inflammation

way too many hours waiting in a small ER in the middle of a sunday night to clean the wound

In the end, the ER folks were pretty inept and thought I still had a piece of beak in my hand:

But it turns out the dot is actually on the correct finger but wrong part of it (off by one knuckle), after going to a proper medical facility at home, they confirmed I had nothing left in my hand. However, I had to take antibiotics for almost a month as I had persistent tingling and "this is not right" feelings in that hand for almost a month. While that octopus thankfully did not have venom that was fatal to humans, whatever it injected me still made my body unhappy for quite a while. I did contact DAN at the time and there is very little info on octopus poison effect on humans outside of the blue ring octopus which is known to be fatal. I guess this is one entry for the database that it's not fatal, but definitely has toxins and causes issues for up to a month after the bite (I used doxycycline 200mg daily for about 2 weeks to help clear the infection).

So while I did not tease or poke the octopus, but it was hunting for food, and after being curious about me, it decided that I could be food after it climbed on my arm to explore (yes, I did let it, it's usually fine and safe). So there you go, beware about octopus contact when they are feeding, especially if your hand smells good to them :)