Tubing Kauai

I picked up my disposable waterproof camera photos today of our tubing ride down the old Lihue plantation irrigation ditch. (I've already bought a waterproof casefor my iphone for future water adventures, because I only ended up with 3 usable photos. Not that anything is wrong with these cameras. It has a lot to do with me accidentally overexposing and double exposing the film!)

The tour starts in Lihue at Kauai Backcountry Adventures. Here our guides passed out rubber gloves and hard helmets with lights. They also rented water shoes if you did't have your own. Aside from our swimwear, we wore our rash guards to keep us warm, which I recommend. Our 9:00am tour had 19 adventurers. I was the only one who brought my kids along, but the tour is definitely great for kids. They take them 5 and up. My 9 year old was given a life jacket to wear, but my 11 year old was allowed to ride without one.

We rode in two bright yellow military vehicles through several locked gates, to our launching point. We paused briefly to pick up our tubes and stopped to take pictures along the way, at a scenic point overlooking Mount Waialeale. I've read the ride up to the launch point takes about 30 minutes, but I really wasn't keeping track of the time.

Our guide Emily told us interesting facts about Kauai and our tubing route as we drove along. We found out that about 80% of our tubing would be in dark hand dug irrigation tunnels. They were dug out with pick axes around the 1860s by Chinese immigrants. We would pass through a total of 5 tunnels, and while the first 2 were pretty straight, some of the others would wind through the mountainside, causing us to yell out "right turn" or "left turn" down the line. Some of the tunnels would have very rough rocky sides, so it was best to let your tube bump off the sides rather then try to push off with your hands. Most of the time I kept my hands well within the tube, clutched onto my waterproof camera. Needless to say, you did need to watch your head at some points, as you didn't want to be pushing off the walls with that particular body part. The last tunnel would be relatively straight and smooth so we could ride through it without turning on our lights.

We would be descending about 200ft during our ride, but luckily, not all at one time. We would be moving along at about 4 miles an hour, which was a nice mellow speed perfect for the kids. Also, the water in the ditch was controlled by several gates that were opened or closed by the turning of large rusty looking wheels. The depth of the ditch was around 3 to 5 feet. There were a few spots that were more shallow, and the call for these were "butts up!" down the line. At these points, we raised ourselves up in the tube, so it was the bottom of the tube, and not our bottoms, that got roughed up. In most places, if you popped out of your tube, you just had to stand up. Our ride went smoothly and we made it with no men, women, or children going overboard.

At the launch point, our guide Kaleo (I know I'm spelling her name wrong!) gave us a little safety guidance on how to sit in our tubes and how to prevent tube jams in the narrow tunnels. We learned that when you were really moving along, it was best to cross your ankles and keep your hands in your lap, and let your tube do all the work. Hands, elbows, or feet flailing too far from the tube could get injured if they were caught between the tube and an immovable wall.

One by one, we got into our tubes and felt the chill of the ditch. Then we were off!