A doors-off helicopter ride on Kaua'i
Completely overwhelming and not one picture taken!
For a woman who married a traditional-type male at a young age, solo travel in my fifties is a constant stretching and discomfort on many levels. We women like to face new situations with a friend or companion at our side, someone to feel safer with, someone to laugh and process new experiences with, and someone to complain to when things aren’t going well.
The first week of my recent trip to Kauai (my friend Holly joined me the second week) was fraught with the discomfort of being alone, a stretching I felt keenly regarding the doors-off helicopter tour I had booked in a fit of bravado.
My reasoning for choosing a tiny four-person chopper with no doors was as follows:
1) It’s going to be scary and expensive anyway, so why not a flight that will guarantee the most jaw-dropping views and extreme experience?
2) My husband Mike did one on the Big Island to photograph lava flowing, and pronounced it “awesome,” so surely, I could handle one too.
3) I’m practically cured from the fear of heights I developed as an adult (by forcing myself to look over the edge of every cliff, ledge, and building I climb.) This will be the ultimate test.
4) I spent the first half of my life on Kauai watching tourists whiz around the island in helicopters and never going myself. When I finally do it, I’ll go big.
The helicopter tour ended up being rescheduled multiple times: the first when they moved me to another day and time because only I was on that flight (not profitable, who knew!) then when our rental car crapped out and had to be replaced before taking Mom to the airport, resulting in a full day’s delay.
Finally I got Mom onto her flight, but when I found the helicopter place near the airport afterward, a bank of tall, forbidding thunderheads were moving in. I went inside the Quonset hut housing the company and through the semi-hilarious but also terrifying safety briefing (“if you need the airsick bag, be sure to hold it sealed over your nose and mouth or vomit will be flying all over everything and everybody in the aircraft”) when the pilot came in. “Sorry, folks. I’m scrubbing the flight. Lighting, thunder, and torrential rain were on their way and it’s not safe.”
Everyone groaned, but some of the moans were definitely relief. The other passengers accepted a refund and left; I stubbornly rescheduled, determined to have this experience, come what may and no matter how hard it was to actually nail down.
(Pro tip for visitors: don’t schedule a chopper flight on your last day of vacation; chances are good something could come up and you won’t have any days left to change it to.)
Many will tell you that the best time for a helicopter flight on Kaua’i ( and most places, in fact) is in the morning before the wind comes up. My trip was scheduled squarely at 1:00 p.m., sure to be windy, but that was the only time that worked so I could do the adventure before I picked up my writer friend at the airport.
When I drove to Lihue again, the storm had moved on though the wind had not. I sat through the safety briefing again, laughing during the same joke because I appreciated the effort the staffer made to put us at ease “Did you know that a helicopter’s propeller serves to keep the pilot cool? Yeah, because when it stops, the pilot starts sweating—especially while in flight.”
The other passengers for our adventure were a couple, who were assigned to sit in front with the pilot because the wife freely admitted to being nervous and therefore was sandwiched between the pilot and the husband behind the Plexiglas bubble windscreen.
I was assigned to sit in back beside another solo female traveler, a six-foot blonde goddess from Germany named Monika (“with a K,” she informed me.)
We received our headsets, and each posed beside the ridiculously small, bright red aircraft, the same type I used to watch Tom Selleck as Magnum P.I. tool around in back in the 1980s. I put all my apprehension/excitement into grinning for the picture they took of us before departure.
Once inside, I turned to Monika, hoping for a little reassurance and human connection. “I’m nervous,” I told her. “But I wanted the full experience if I was going to do it.”
“I would not consider anything but doors off.” Monika looked down her long nose at me. “I’m a base jumper.”
“A what?” I wasn’t sure I heard her right between the rotors starting up and her accent.
“I base jump. And skydive. This is nothing.” She turned away, took out her phone on its strap, and began filming.
So much for bonding with a fellow female traveler! But hey, I was cool.
Right? Right.
“I got this,” I said aloud. “This is awesome.”
I gulped as the rotors spun faster and faster until the noise and wind they generated obliterated every thought and all sound but what could be heard by pressing a button to talk through the headphones. I too had my phone on a safety strap around my wrist, but from the moment the chopper lifted off the ground to the moment it returned an hour later, I didn’t have the wherewithal to do anything but tuck the phone into my bra, zip up my parka, and cling to my seat with one hand and the safety handle with the other.
Fear wasn’t the right word for what gripped me; it was complete and total sensory overwhelm. I was deafened (even with headphones) by the propellers and the wind blowing through the open door along with the sound. The whole experience felt exactly like what being inside a blender at top margarita-making speed would be like. Add to that the crazy beautiful dizzying heights, depths, and sights of Kauai, my beloved home island, as seen from a perspective I’d only imagined and watched videos of…well, I just lost it.
Once I knew for sure no one could hear me, I screamed, cried, swore, and prayed at the top of my lungs “omigod oh shit oh shit we’re not really doing that are we omigod I guess we are oh shit wow hallelujah that’s incredible oh Lord thank you I get to see this EEEEEKK oh no not again we’re going to hit that cliff for sure here we go oh gawd” and so on.
Monika studiously ignored me in favor of leaning out over the strut beneath us and taking movies, for which I was grateful.
Because I was barely able to process, I only remember a few amazing snippets: the moment when we turned into Waimea Valley, the “Grand Canyon of the Pacific” and flew straight up it, above the river and well below its red, striped, intricate ridges. We reached a plummeting 400-foot waterfall I hadn’t known existed at the top of the valley. We turned in a 360 degree circle in front of the vertical, plunging tumble of water as tropicbirds wheeled and darted beside us, their trailing, white forked tails like lightning on the wing.
Another flash of memory: we topped the lookout at Kokee, and flew out over Kalalau Valley, a view I’d seen throughout my life from the ground—but never like this, soaring out over that huge, enchanted valley of folded green velvet and spear-sharp ridges, the sea a violently-bright Prussian blue that we zoomed toward with all the insouciance of a dragonfly.
Utter awe was the only possible response (which I expressed as tearful gibbering.)
At another point, the pilot calmly informed us we’d be flying into the heart of the island and exploring Mt. Waialeale, one of the wettest spots on earth. I felt distinctly apprehensive and superstitious about approaching this venerable, sacred area; and that feeling only increased as we flitted up a deep, dark, ominous valley enrobed in clouds. Rain spat and blew through the helicopter, as we reached Mount Waialeale’s peak and flew alongside an immense black and green cliff chiseled over its sheer, massive face with hundreds of waterfalls.
The mana (spiritual power) of the site swirled around me along with stinging drops of rain that engulfed and soaked us. “Mahalo Ke Akua,” I said over and over, “thank you, God,” in Hawaiian—as we presumed to trespass where no human on foot could reach.
Overall, as I climbed shakily out of the helicopter at the end of the trip, my biggest impression was of how utterly wild and undomesticated most of the island was. The civilized parts of Kaua’i are mere lichens grown up around the edges of a great, curled, sleeping dragon queen nestled in beaches and sea-shroud.
So, if you ever visit Hawaii and feel a hankering to take a helicopter ride—do it. Just be aware it may affect you more than you think it will and in ways that surprise you—like being unable to take a single photo because you’re so overwhelmed.
If you enjoyed this post, hit the little ❤️ and pass it on! I welcome your thoughts and comments. Mahalo!
P.S. here’s a video of the type of helicopter ride I took and the way its done is how I thought the experience would be. It was not like this AT ALL for me, thought the flight path and sights were technically the same.)
Hubby and I did this many years ago, before cell phone cameras. It was amazing! I would recommend to anyone as this is the only way to see the interior of the island.
In all our visits over a 5 year span, we never did the helicopter ride, now I wish we’d tried! I’m sure I’d been like you, trying to absorb it and freaking, that there would be no photographic proof 🤗. Proud of you!!