Am I Brave? Or Just Stupid?

Last Friday was a state holiday for us, King Kamehameha Day, so I had a day off and was not even on call. Joey and I decided to have a fun day with just the two of us, since Mike's on the mainland right now. We spent most of the day at Poipu beach playing and soaking up the sun. There were two very big sea turtles also soaking up sun right at the edge of the water. We sat in the warm sand and kept them company for a while. They were beautiful. They stayed there all day. I would have taken pictures but I didn't have my camera with me. After the beach we had pizza at Pizzeta's in Koloa (one of our favorites), where Joey made friends with some men watching sports at the bar and had some pretty hot debates about teams.

On the way home, we decided to take a detour and ended up at Kipu Falls. This is a beautiful little spot near Lihue. We hiked the short hike to the falls and there were a couple of people there already. We watched them jump from the cliff at the top of the falls into the water. Then they got the rope that swings out over the pool and started swinging on it, landing at the base of the falls. After you land, you swim to the cliff and climb up a ladder someone has conveniently placed there back to the top of the falls. It looks fun, but I had no intention of actually doing it, mostly because I had no idea how deep the water was, and in my warped way of thinking, the deeper it is, the scarier it is. Also, I was two days from my 49th birthday, so, of course, I am too old to even consider doing such a thing.

Here's the scene: Joey, me and four teenagers from the mainland. As we watched the teens swinging out over the water, yelling and screaming and basically having a great time, we decided to do it. I stood on the edge holding the rope listening to my heart race and thinking I'm not really going to do this, am I? After a few half-hearted attempts at stepping off the cliff, I actually DID. I went soaring through the air, suspended by a rope, swinging like Tarzan through the jungle. It was exhilirating! When the rope started it's back-swing, my weight pulled me off the rope and I sailed to the water, landing with a big splash and a BIG smile.

WHAT A RUSH!! It was awesome! I swam to the ladder (not an easy feat for this poor swimmer but I did it) and climbed up. The teenagers were all impressed that this old grandma did it.

Joey did it twice after I did and the second time he did it, he didn't let go of the rope on the first swing, so he kicked off the cliff to swing again before he finally landed.

We were hyper driving home, let me tell you! What an adventure we had! When we got home, we googled Kipu Falls and found some terrifying videos of people having horrendous accidents on rope swings. We decided it was a good thing we didn't google it before we went or we would have NEVER gotten on that rope. As it was, we had a terrific time in our ignorance and no one was hurt.

I did not have my camera to take real pictures, so I got an internet picture for this post. If you look closely, you can see the ladder. The rope swing is at about the 11 o'clock position in the picture, hanging from a huge tree.