Today we saw Kauai from the air. We took a helicopter tour through Waimea Canyon and over Mt. Wai'ale'ale and above Alakai Swamp and along Na Pali coast and heavens above, parts of this island are heaven on earth.
Then we saw Wailua Falls, only from its overlook because we hadn't yet figured out that signs saying "Danger! Do not pass fence!" do not mean "We'll arrest you if you pass this fence, you trespassing malihini" but only "You might break your crazy neck." Another person was willing to break his crazy-ass neck and every single other bone in his body for those falls, though: he rock-hopped from the riverbank across and downstream to stone forming the very lip of the falls, and there he stood, on a surface damp and slippery with spume, so on the edge that his feet sloped downward and his toes grasped at nothing, and played his guitar for the the falls.
For the rest of our visit, upon whatever inaccessible cliff or peak or rock in the surf we saw, we'd point out the guitar player.
The other falls we attempted were Kipu Falls, just a walk downstream for two seconds but to approach the pool below you had to cross the stream, in waist-high water just above the falls, and then clamber down what looked from as close as we got like rope made of twine. RDC didn't want to cross with his camera, and we had been warned most strongly not to leave anything in our car--a cop was taking a report at the access road from someone who'd just had his car robbed, and I didn't think it fair to go if RDC couldn't, so we didn't swim beneath Kipu either.
But we swam at the beach when we got home in the late afternoon, and we'd swum in the morning before we left, and though I've never swum under a waterfall, I can't get enough of ocean either. Floating face up, I could nearly nap (except for the current and the surf); face down, I looked at fishes (I kept my goggles on).