This is part 3 of our Hawaiian picture series. One of the top 3 issues on our must-do list was Whale Watching. The time was right. During winter and early spring the whales have their resort in Hawaiian seas. We also wanted to see the Na Pali coast, which is mostly only accessible by sea. This coast looks like primeval times and therefore it is no surprise that it was seen in movies like Jurassic Park.

Captain Andy’s offered both. Na Pali and Whale Watching. The tour was called Capt. Andy’s Na Pali Dinner Sunset Sail and included several hours sailing on a catamaran as well as dinner on board framed by beautiful Na Pali and Hawaiian sunset. Sounds perfect!

We had booked a tour on saturday but weather let us down. Strong wind and rain was forecast and both was right when we arrived in Port Allen. The lady at the Check-In counter told us, that due to these conditions we might not be possible to actual reach the Na Pali coast and they offered us to shift our trip to the next day, for free. Since we knew about the sunny forecast for the next day we gratefully agreed. Great service.

We had one more question: “Do we see a whale tomorrow?”      “For sure…!”      🙂      Great!

On sunday, the conditions were perfect and it was a gentle cruise reaching Na Pali. Click on the following panoramas (original resolution ~50 megapixel) to pinch and zoom in:

Well, now to the whales…. or not. Don’t get me wrong. We’ve seen plenty of them – 50 and more, easy. So the lady was right. But… they only decided to “pose” for us and my camera twice by jumping out of the water. I was literally standing on deck holding my camera ready for almost the entire cruise, to get that one single shot. Guess what: Murphy’s law struck twice! The first time I decided to clean my sunglasses when I heard the people shout “uhhhhh”. I was able to see the second half of the jump. But it was too late for the camera. The second time I decide only two minutes ago that it is getting to dark right now and I wanted to enjoy the sunset. So I put my camera back in my bag under deck, came back on deck and see several whales jumping and jumping as if they have hold themselves back until I couldn’t shoot them anymore. It was awesome. I keep these images back in my head, but I was not able to capture them on my memory card.

But to give you an idea on how it looked like, this is what we have seen (photo courtesy of Capt Andy’s Sailing Adventures and Raft Expeditions Facebook page)…. pretty amazing when a “truck” emerges from the water only several feet away!

Here are some more photos from our great trip. The crew was nice and very helpful. The dinner was good and plenty enough for everybody. We’ve seen whales and the beautiful Na Pali coast. And the service was great as well (as described above). Clear recommendation for Captain Andy’s and his crew.