It was like a game of peekaboo: up on the trail, blue skies with crashing blue ocean below us. Down on the bluffs? Swirling gray mist all around. Back up on the trail? Blue sky above, blue ocean below. Folks ahead of us said we’d just missed it, so we hung out for a while by the cliffside barricades, snacking and chasing away the omnipresent feral chickens that circled, shark-like, hoping for a dropped morsel of trail mix. There was a moment where it looked like the fog might break – some blue patches in the haze – but then the mist descended again. Unperturbed, the chickens circled closer.

When I last left you, I mentioned that I was headed for Kauai. Wait – what? Yes. Those of you who’ve been following the where-is-Pablo-today scorecard from an earlier post may recall that my ultimate reason for being in Hawaii was to get onboard the R/V Sikuliaq in Honolulu, but that I had a few days of slack between here and there.

Way back in the beforetimes, in my Silicon Valley days, I found myself in over my head, having had responsibility for keeping Google Labs online land in my lap. Yes, yes, I know: my lap seems to attract projects that I have no experience or expertise to be running.

But back then, I sent out a call for help for others in the company who did have expertise in the needed areas, and a fellow named Loren up in Seattle with rock solid credentials in system security chimed in and asked if he could be of assistance. He could, and he was, helping us navigate a few of the trickier immediate messes, and helping guide our thoughts on how we could try to design forward with security in mind. And he should know, he wrote the book on Designing Secure Software from the ground up. Okay, one of the books, but an influential one.

We stayed in contact when I left Labs and took that sabbatical to the South Pole. He told me he was inspired by my initiative in “stepping away from the heart of the great machine” to take a sabbatical of his own, out to Kauai to spend a few months volunteering with a native habitat restoration project. I don’t remember the details (yeah, I suppose I could just ask, right?), but my recollection was that on his return, he pretty much gave notice, cleaned out his desk and moved back to Kauai, where he and his wife have been ever since.

We continued chatting about our respective new lives by email whenever the opportunity arose, with him reiterating the invitation to come visit “The Garden Isle” whenever I wanted. And, of course, could break away from my other activities to.

Well, there were those four days uncommitted days between leaving Rancho La Puerta and reporting for ship duty on Oahu, so I was finally able to take him up on his kind offer.

Loren picked me up mid-day at the Lihue airport, and we didn’t waste a minute hitting the road. Kauai is about as close to a squashed circle as you can get, with road running only around the rim and pretty much only from about 12 to 9 o’clock. In that missing quarter circle is the fabled Nā Pali Coast, which you can hike if you’ve got a couple of spare days, the right gear and quads of steel.

We launched north, counterclockwise, stopping for waterfalls, beach views, mountain views and fish tacos (OMG – such fish tacos!) along the way. Sun, rain, sun, rain, making our way up to Hanalei, made obliquely famous from the cryptic Peter, Paul and Mary reference. It really was a lovely town – as were all the little towns we stopped in on the way.

Sun wasn’t far from down by the time we made it back around to Loren and Keiko’s place on the south side of the island. Keiko seemed to effortlessly whip up a stunningly beautiful and tasty Japanese meal unlike anything I’ve had since my last visit to the land of the rising sun. We ate, we sat out on the lanai and talked while the sun went down. And then, very suddenly, all that sleep deficit caught up with me and I conked out an Energizer bunny with its batteries yanked.

I didn’t resist: we had a bit of a hike planned for the morning – other side of the island – and I was definitely going to need all the juice I could manage.

Westernmost traffic light in the United States

The plan was to drive clockwise around to approximately “9:00” on the island, turn right at the westernmost stoplight in the United States, and follow Koke’e Road up to the  Awa’awapuhi  trailhead. The trail, as Loren described it, was a swamp that started 4200′ up [correction: Loren had been describing a different trailhead, a little further up, and a little swampier], and slowly dried out as you descended the approximately 1800′ to the cliffs that gave you a breathtaking view of the Nā Pali coast, so close you could hear the surf.

There were plenty of opportunities to stop on the way – more fish tacos on offer (“These ones are my favorite – they do them more like poke, but let’s save that for the way back.”), scenic overlooks with selfie-takers, and the coffee plantation where Loren lends a hand from time to time. But this was leeward Kauai, and it was going to start getting hot, even 4200′, so we opted to save our dawdlings for the way back.

True to description, the trail alternated between mud and deceptively slippery hard slicks at the start. By two miles in, I was wearing mud on pretty much every limb and article of clothing I had, but managed to avoid any actual injuries, other than to my pride as a once-nimble scrambler.

We passed, and were passed by other day hikers of every age, and in every configuration of clothing and preparation. Hardcore young hardbodies with full kit, old shirtless men in flipflops, young women who looked like they were returning from the beach. I noted with mild embarrassment that I appeared to be the only person wearing any mud, but all exchanged cheerful greetings and wishes for a good morning.

And it was a good morning – a great one. Loren and I chatted up discussions about linguistics, mathematics, parenting, evolution – everything. Those of you who recall my complaints about folks destroying the quiet solitude of a trail by incessant chattering loudly the whole way? Alas, guilty as charged. Our only pauses were when Loren pulled up short to point out a shrub, tree or flower and give me its local context. The strawberry guava – lovely but brutally invasive. The…I can’t remember the name of the shrub [Loren: uluhe] – tends to create mats of underbrush on cliff edges that people mistake for solid ground. This flower, with inward-tucking thorns that won’t let you go. The omnipresent feral chickens. Great, great fun.

As I’ve already told you, we did get to hear the surf crashing along the Nā Pali coast when we arrived at trail’s end, but any visuals had to be left to the imagination. Below and through the fog, we could see more intrepid hikers who had descended a series of little knobs another fifty or hundred feet beyond what discretion advised in hopes of getting a view under the mist, but we contented ourselves with the old-men’s-perogative of sitting and waiting.

The way back – 1800′ feet of vertical over another 3.5 miles of trail – felt much more manageable than the descent, and despite the heat (how does someone go through that much water?!?), we were back at trailhead well before I expected. It was just a case of time flying, though: by the time we’d hobbled back into the car and navigated west to the coast, it was already 4:00 pm, and we’d missed our chance for the westernmost fish tacos in the country. Nevermind that – Loren said Keiko already had plans to whip up another “simple little something” for dinner. Which of course was another astoundingly beautiful and tasty dinner, the likes of which I haven’t had since my last trip to Japan.

Tonight? Onto the ship and eastward into the Pacific. I’ll keep you posted!