Lava!!!

  
  
  
  
  
  
 

We popped into a Hilo gallery displaying amazing photos of the lava on the first day we arrived on the big island. Talking to the owner/photographer really fired Ty up.  He let us know about the various hiking tours out onto the coastal plains outside of the national park where you can get right up close to the lava. The lava had been flowing for almost 2 years consistently on the plains, so we figured that we’d have time to go after checking out other things around the island.

However, the next day – the flows on the coastal plains stopped. All lava hiking tours were cancelled.  This was not what we wanted to hear, particularly Ty. Every morning at 7.00am he would check the lava reports online, make calls to the hiking companies and spend hours at night researching. Each day I would wake up and see an incredibly disappointed face.  Instead we went to Volcanoes National Park and saw beautiful lush forests and the Halema’uma’u crater, which was awesome at night with the orange glow set against the dark sky and the stars. We also drove to the end of road which had been cut off by a lava flow, but still it wasn’t what we really wanted to see.

With only a couple of days left on the Big Island we went back to Hilo. Ty was becoming more despondent by the day. After a very brief discussion, we decided that the only way we could have a chance to see the lava was to do a helicopter trip over the area where it was burning the forest.  Ty phoned up the helicopter company, found an awesome deal on a last-minute cancellation, and we were in the air within 45 minutes. From above, it was incredible to see the landscape and the devastation that the lava had caused, amazing to think that it was also the start of creating a new landscape on the island. We could clearly see lava flowing, fires burning trees and the spatter cones at the top of the crater were glowing red. The helicopter hovered so close to one active area that I could really feel the heat. At one point, the pilot expressed surprise as he pointed out a small group of hikers walking out on the very restricted and hazardous lava fields right up on the flanks of Kilauea volcano near Pu’u ‘O’o – the lava source.

Ty’s eyes lit up. After returning to base Ty quickly did some detective work with the help of the friendly hostel manager and tracked down the lone rogue company that took hikers up to the source. After another quick phone call that night we were booked to go on the lava hike the next day (our last day on the island). This equalled one very happy Ty!

The company kitted us out with snacks, water, gloves, and head torches and we were ready to go. The hike was an 11 mile round trip hike through lush green forests and mud. After around 2 hours of walking through the doomed rainforest, we reached the inevitably advancing edge of the fresh black lava fields. It was like walking on the moon; incredibly surreal. The smell of the burning forest’s smoke swirled in the air. The lava was brittle and felt unstable to walk on. There were many cracks in sections and really interesting patterns. Walking over some of the solidified lava you could peer between cracks and see the bright red glow of the molten lava underneath.  It made Ty’s whole trip when the guide found an active patch and he got to poke his whisk in the lava! A real specimen that he could use in the classroom. His mission to track the active lava had been accomplished.

AWESOME!

Mantas by Moonlight

  
  

The manta rays of the Big Island are (almost) tamed with a treat of krill drawn to floodlights for an easy feed.  It's a bit of an industry here - it seems that the mantas first started to appear by the deck of the Sheraton drawn by the lights each night. (N.B. it's free!)  Now, everybody and his cousin in Kona has an operation sending people out on snorkeling and diving trips to various spots along the coast equipped with powerful lamps to draw in the giant rays.

We found an el-cheapo operator that took us out on a catamaran to a spot where we jumped in holding on to the edges of an old surfboard with lamps shining down from its bottom.  And it was awesome.

Scary to have a 15-foot-wide animal race straight at you with its gaping maw wide open in a feeding frenzy only to turn away at the last moment.  But pretty cool.

After watching the mantas do their night time acrobatics from the comfort of the balcony of the Sheraton bar, we decided that it would be really cool to be in there in the water to see them close up. The next day we booked and drove down to the marina. We jumped on a catamaran and sailed out as the sun was setting. As we arrived at the spot, there were already quite a few boats waiting for the right time. We donned our snorkelling gear, adorned with yellow glow sticks and then jumped into the dark water, clinging onto the board. As soon as we had jumped in two mantas came straight up and were somersaulting right beneath us. One was so close I thought it would brush its belly against mine. I had been slightly apprehensive about being in the water with such large creatures, but it was actually quite peaceful, as they were so graceful. Floating on the surface and looking down you could see all of the divers and their torches. It looked like something out of sci-fi film; an underwater world filled with beams of light from the bottom. It was artificial but a fantastic sight. 

Ty and I were also lucky to spot turtles whilst out swimming at a lovely beach spot we had found. Some friendly Japanese tourists let me borrow their gear and I got a chance to check it out.

Mauna Kea - above the clouds

 
 


 

Simply awesome! Having written a whole dissertation about this telescope, checking out the Keck with a technician was just amazing.  The views from above the clouds up here are just unreal.  However missioning up from sea level to 13700' then hiking around on the summit for several hours is a real recipe for some brutal altitude sickness. Head hurts just thinking of it!!!

It was cool. The altitude sickness was not so cool!