There’s nothing like taking in the view of the beautiful Na Pali coast of Kauai from the bow of a catamaran with a mai tai in one hand and a chocolate chip cookie in the other. I recently returned from a trip to Kauai where I was visiting family and doing the tourist thing. One of the highlights of the trip: a four-hour sunset dinner cruise along the rugged and picturesque northern coast of Kauai.

There are a lot of boat tour options on Kauai, but we chose Blue Dolphin Charters over the others because it had options for shorter cruises (we didn’t want to spend the whole day on the boat), and we loved the idea of having dinner and drinks while watching the sunset.

We had beautiful weather and (mostly) calm seas. The captain and crew were full of interesting information about the island’s geography, history and wildlife. At one point we stopped so we could take a look at and feed the saltwater piranhas swimming around the boat. We were also lucky to see some late-migrating humpback whales, after we had initially spotted some spray and glimpses of tails.

When whales are present boats are required to stop and wait for them to swim away, so we had several minutes to watch them. Before long they started jumping out of the water! One of the crewmembers told me that they were doing what is called a ‘spy-hop,’ which is when they stick their heads out of the water so they can get a look at what’s going on above the surface.

Once we reached the end of the Na Pali coast we turned around to head back to port. At that point the crew set up our dinner and started serving drinks. The food was deliciously Hawaiian, with dishes like pulled pork and, of course, lots of fresh fruit. The crew was attentive and quick to tell stories; it was obvious that they were having fun too. Just before we docked we watched the sunset over the island of Niihau, a beautiful end to a great trip.