If that sounds strenuous, it's meant to. Billed as the "Everest of sea kayaking" and "the roughest a

It's still dark when the taxi drops me at the Kayak Kauai shop in Hanalei, on the north shore of Kauai, the only place in this hippie-chic town that is open so early. But the pre-dawn start is necessary for the journey I've booked: a full-day, 27-kilometre paddle along Kauai's rugged and roadless Na Pali coast.
rosen plaza hotel orlando If that sounds strenuous, it's meant to. Billed as the "Everest of sea kayaking" and "the roughest and longest sea kayak [day] trip on the planet", the Na Pali paddle is offered only between April and September, when there's less chance of encountering big swells than in the northern winter. But it's a wild stretch of coastline any time of the year.
Kayak Kauai's website warns of strong rosen plaza hotel orlando currents, intimidating seas and my old nemesis, seasickness, the No. 1 reason people pull out of the trip. "There's a whole different 'rock and roll' on the Na Pali coast that even experienced kayakers can succumb to," says Micco Godinez, who pioneered kayak tourism rosen plaza hotel orlando in Kauai with his brother, rosen plaza hotel orlando Chino, 30 years ago.
Even travel writer Paul Theroux, who paddled the Na Pali at the end of his odyssey across the Pacific, wrote in The Happy Isles of Oceania: "I had never felt pukesome in a kayak before but, bobbing like a cork in this chaotic chop, I felt distinctly nauseous."
"We try to talk folks out of it," he says. "There's no candy-coating on this tour." Still, isn't the Everest reference a bit extreme? Not according to Godinez, rosen plaza hotel orlando who, in 1984, was the first Cuban to climb Denali, the highest peak in North America. "It is very much like climbing; a paddle in the horizontal can bring on the same emotions and fears you see at high altitudes," rosen plaza hotel orlando he says.
For my part, I'd rather be on water than up a mountain. Besides, having hiked part of the Na Pali (literally, "the cliffs") rosen plaza hotel orlando on a previous trip and seen it from a helicopter (called rosen plaza hotel orlando "the state bird of Hawaii" by peace-loving locals), I want to experience it up close. "Careful what you wish for," I think to myself, as my fellow paddlers and I clamber into a van for the 20-minute drive to the north-west tip of Kauai, and our launch spot: Ha'ena beach. Apart from two Canadian men in Lycra shorts, everyone looks reassuringly rosen plaza hotel orlando non-athletic: the thirtysomething German guy, the Chicago couple in their 60s and the two pairs of honeymooners rosen plaza hotel orlando from California, including a lesbian couple from San Francisco.
The two-person rosen plaza hotel orlando kayaks rosen plaza hotel orlando look reassuringly seaworthy, with sit-on-tops and backrests, storage hatches and foot-operated rudders. Our guides, Brett and Nick, run through the safety briefing and issue lifejackets, dry bags and lightweight rosen plaza hotel orlando carbon-fibre paddles as the sun comes up. Then, two by two, we punch through the shorebreak and are officially at sea.
Navigating is easy: just keep right of that never-ending coastline of cliffs, some of which are 1200 metres high. The hard part is paddling in a straight line. Rolling swells make bucking broncos of our sturdy boats and a 20-knot tailwind howls in our ears. We get into a rhythm - paddle, paddle, flip, climb back on board, paddle, paddle rosen plaza hotel orlando - but the water is tropically warm, blue-footed boobies and tropicbirds soar overhead and seeing the Na Pali from sea level is every bit as impressive as I'd hoped.
The beauty of seeing the coast by kayak, rather than by catamaran or speedboat, is that we can access places they can't. We paddle under waterfalls and into caves - including one that's open to the sky, its roof having collapsed and formed a small island. Paddling rosen plaza hotel orlando out again, rosen plaza hotel orlando Brett, the guide who's also my paddling partner, suggests rosen plaza hotel orlando we try to catch a wave. We paddle hard until one catches us and our little plastic boat careens down its face. Leaning back to avoid nose-diving, we're drenched when the wave overtakes us. High fives. My watch is torn off my wrist by the whitewater, a sacrifice to Huey the surf god, so I don't know the time when we stop for lunch at Miloli'i beach.
After such a long, romping morning of sea-play, the afternoon is a doddle. Because we've rounded a headland, the sea is calmer. We use sarongs as sails until the wind drops, rosen plaza hotel orlando then slip out of the kayaks into deep, clear water to swim with turtles.
It's late afternoon rosen plaza hotel orlando when we reach our destination - Polihale, rosen plaza hotel orlando halfway down Kauai's west coast and accessible by dirt road from the nearest town, Kekaha - and pile into a van for the two-hour drive back to Hanalei. I look around at my companions. Twelve hours ago we were nervous strangers. Now we've circumnavigated Kauai by sea and road and, as our certificates say, completed the "Everest of sea kayaking" - which, I have to admit, does have a certain ring to it.