When I posted the photos of the Waiahuakua sea cave with the waterfall in the previous post, I didn’t know of any other published images of the falls. I usually keep my eyes open for images of Kaua’i, they show up every now and then in advertising and illustrations, but I’d never seen a picture of that one, even in books. I’m sure they exist, I just hadn’t seen them yet.
Well, it only took 2 days to find one. I was at a book store today, and just walking by a shelf, I saw it, full cover and unmistakable:
Here’s the book on Amazon. I also found a larger version of the image on the National Geographic website. It turns out that it was one of the illustrations for the April 2008 article about Na Pali that I had panned.
To be fair, Google did find two other image of the waterfall, even dating back to 1999 and 2000.
More interestingly, my Google image search turned up a very interesting website about sea caves. And on that page, there is a link to another page that claims the Waiahuakua is the second longest sea cave in the world (actually, Kauai has 3 of the top 11). They measure it at 352 m or 1155 ft.
But what they don’t say is that the Waiahuakua is very unique because it was created when two sea caves joined at their deepest point, forming a tunnel with two entrances. Locals call it the horseshoe cave. But when I was kayaking through it, all I could think of was “how many sea caves in the world have a waterfall coming through the roof?”
PS: cave and map entheusiasts like myself will appreciate the gallery of cave maps on sea cave website. It also has an overview map of lava tubes on the Big Island.