Journeys›Photograph

Watching Weather on the Kauai Coast

·#landscape-photography#rainbows#ocean#aerial-photography#coastline
A tall palm tree arches over an ocean with breaking waves, a person swimming, green grass, and two tiki torches.

A few days of watching weather on the coast, and this was the day it paid off. Kauai's south shore kept trading rain for sun all morning — big surf stacking up past the tiki torches on the lawn, one swimmer out past the rope fence, clouds coming through in shifts.

Walked out along the lava shelf near Spouting Horn and a rainbow came down right onto the reef, close enough that a wave broke through the bottom of it. It hung there through two or three squalls, fading and coming back, the far end of the coast disappearing into grey and then showing up again with houses on it.

Afternoon was the helicopter over the Na Pali coast. Cliffs folded into ridges like drapery, red rock under the green, and beaches at the base with no way in except the water. Kalalau was empty except for the surf line. The rain caught up with us out there too.

A rainbow arches across a cloudy sky over a vast ocean with white-capped waves and distant land.A rainbow over a dark ocean and rocky coastline with green plants on the left under a cloudy sky.A rainbow arcs across a cloudy sky over a dark, rocky coastline with waves in a dark blue ocean.A rainbow arcs over a dark ocean with waves crashing on a rugged, rocky shoreline under a cloudy sky.A rainbow arches over a dark, rocky ocean coastline with waves breaking under a cloudy sky.Aerial view of steep, jagged green and red-orange mountains meeting the blue ocean with white waves.Rugged green and brown mountains rise above a sandy beach and a wide expanse of turquoise ocean.An aerial view of the Na Pali Coast with steep green and red cliffs, a sandy beach, and the blue ocean.

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