Hawai'i Trip!
Arrrggghhhhh!!!!!!
I spent 4 hours writing and loading photos and documenting our Hawai'i trip last night. Had auto save on, AND clicked the 'save' button numerous times throughout. And this morning, I woke up to finish it up and post it, and ... nothing. Gone. Zilch. It showed the first entry I had made a few days ago, but nothing else. None of the work from the previous night. Arrrrggghhhhh!!! (Did I say that already?)
So in places here, I didn't spend as much time writing some details, because I just wanted to get this posted. But most of it's here, so I think you can get the gist of it.
Wednesday, 29 March 2017
We both flew into the Kona airport; Lynne from Honolulu and I from San Jose. She was scheduled to be there an hour ahead of me, and was going to have to wait around, but ... my flight was almost an hour EARLY, and we landed at almost the same time. Things are starting pretty darn well...
Got a rental car and started driving toward Volcano National Park, but needed some food and coffee. What kind of coffee, you might ask? Kona coffee, I would answer with perhaps just a hint of condescension...
Green Flash Cafe for coffee and a snack.
Back in the car, and on our way to adventure.
On the way to volcanoes, we passed the Punalu'u Black Sand Beach park, so we got out to look, and the sand... was black! I know! Whoulda thunk?? There were turtles just laying around, too. Turtles I tell ya! In the sand! That was black!
Turtles.
White foot, black sand.
Same turtles.
Turtle close up.
Black sand, white hand.
Black. Sand. Beach.
In a pond right behind the beach, there were a bunch of these.
(Purple lotus we think)
More purple loti... lotix... lotuses... flowers.
Left the beach, and drove to the Volcano Inn, and checked in, and then walked around the grounds a little before grabbing a quick bite, and going up to the park. As it turns out, the lava level in the crater rises and falls (at an unknown interval, but can be over several days), and apparently, you usually (or often?) can't even see any actual lava; you can only see an orange glow in the steam above the lava in the evening. But the lava was UP! And we could see the lava bubbling and spattering. Amazing!
View from the Jaggar Museum overlook.
Zoomed in. It's bubbling and spattering!!
Here's a little video.
(Interesting chat about sovereign policy going on in the background?)
Again with the zooming.
We stayed for several hours, and it kept going.
Another little clip. (With more background noise...)
We finally left the park and went back to the Volcano Inn where we immediately went out and sat in their outdoor hot tub among the ferns.
The hot tub from earlier in the day when we checked in. Beautiful spot.
Thursday, 30 March 2017
Breakfast in the fern forest.
Well, not IN the forest, we're separated from all the yucky stuff outside by a window, thank goodness.
Drove back into the park, and straight to the Jaggar Museum overlook, and the lava is still there, bubbling away.
Because apparently one can't have too many pictures of bubbling lava...
Drove to the overlook of the Kilauea Iki crater (small crater just east of the big Kilauea Caldera), then parked and walked through a lava tube, and hiked down to the floor of Kilauea Iki.
Kilauea Iki crater
(and cindercone back there... which we didn't know yet).
Walk to Thurston Lava Tube
In the lava tube.
Hiking down to the bottom of Kilauea Iki.
Still on way down. So lush!
At the bottom... so not lush!
'Ohi'a Lehua just growing out of solid lava rock.
Signs of bubbling in the past.
More again...
Another solitary 'Ohi'a Lehua.
We finished our hike, and got back in the car to drive further down the Chain of Craters road. Stopped on the way to hike up to Pu'u Huluhulu lookout. Looking east, we could see the Pu'u 'O'o summit. This is where the lava is coming from that it currently making its way down to the ocean (coming soon...). It is well east of the Kilauea Caldera where we were looking at the bubbling lava in the pictures here.
Pu'u 'O'o from the top of Pu'u Huluhulu.
Old lava flow down the middle of the trail.
Coming down the trail, we saw Nenes!!
(Endangered Hawaiian Goose)
Resting (but wary) Nene.
We continued down the Chain of Craters road until it hit the ocean at the Holei Sea Arch. The road used to go all the way east toward Kalapana, but the lava from Pu'u 'O'o covered the road, and now the road stops here... about four and half miles from where the lava is going into the ocean.
Holei Sea Arch
Looking east, that plume of steam is where the lava is dropping into the ocean.
Edge of the road.
Also edge of the road.
There's the plume where the lava is dropping into the ocean.
(With just a hint of Lynne at the far left...)
Weirdscape.
Weirderscape.
Even weirderscap.
Most weirdestscape.
Uhhhscape.
What the... scape.
Help me out here...
Really, I got nothing else...
Oooh I got this one...
Lava dropping into the ocean makes a lot of steam.
Really, a lot.
Starting to get dark, and you can see the orange.
Not going to bodysurf here any time soon...
Friday, 31 March 2017
Little ol' breakfast selfie.
Interestingly enough, unbeknownst to either of us, they took a picture of us sitting there, and posted it on their website. Which was spotted by Mom, and when she mentioned it to us, we had no idea what she was talking about, since we had already left the inn. (Fill in comment here about not always having any idea what Mom is talking about...)
Maybe the picture is still there... maybe it's not...
After breakfast, we went back to Volcano National Park, and went to the lava overlook, and I'm not even going to post a picture of that. Who needs another picture of bubbling lava, anyway? On the way, though, there was this stretch of steam vents that were ... venting? ... more than they had the previous times we'd been there.
Steam vents.
After the overlook, we went to the visitor center, and watched the movie about the Kilauea Iki eruption in 1959. It was super cool, and made us want to go back into the crater, because we didn't really know what we were looking at before. So we went on another hike to the crater. This time from the west side starting at the visitor center. We hiked along Waldron Ledge... down into the Kilauea Iki crater, then back up along Byron Ledge just below Waldron, then down to the Kilauea Caldera floor, and then back up to the visitor center along the Halema'uma'u trail.
First overlook of Kilauea Caldera with Halema'uma'u in the background.
Fern fiddlehead.
Different fern, different fiddlehead.
In the movie about the Kilauea Iki eruption, they showed the vent spewing lava up to 1700 feet in the air. And they talked about the cindercone that formed during the eruption; a mountain that wasn't there in October 1959, and then was in December 1959. And that the crater filled with hundreds of feet of molten lava, and then a lot of it poured back down the vent when it stopped erupting, and ... how it took 37 years for it to cool enough to walk on. This happened in 1959, so that means it was too hot to walk on as recently as ... um ... 1959 + 36 = ... not that long ago!
So before we drop in... take a quick peek at this video of the eruption. It's sort of long, and there's no sound, but you get the idea of what happened here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=326yk_P0R0w
Check, for example the 2:05 mark, and you'll see how high it was spewing. There may be other good spots too... I never did watch this whole clip.
Here's the cindercone view from the trail down.
The vent is that little hole lined with trees down in the bottom left corner.
Hard to tell scale, but we'll address how many LUs tall it is later.
The hike down. Amazing how lush the trail is, only to arrive at the bottom of the crater where it's so inhospitable.
Another fiddlehead. I liked these, and took too many pictures of them.
More luscious. Um, lushes. Oops, lushness. That's it, lushness.
I also have too many pictures of the 'Ohi'a Lehuas.
See?
Just weird lava shape. Makes me wish I'd been here to see how it formed.
(Wearing impervious heat-shield suit of course...)
So here's the actual vent that the lava came out of. This is the actual hole in the ground that that geyser of lava was shooting out of and I'm only still writing so I don't end this sentence with a preposition.
Another pic. It's starting to fill in with dirt from above.
There's a Lynne Unit for a size reference (thank you Lynne). I guess we still don't know exactly how many LUs tall it is, but at least we've got some idea now.
Cracks and...
buckling and...
rifts...
... oh my.
Looks like asphalt that has been broken up to be taken away.
And you couldn't even walk here until 1995!
Okay... apparently no pictures in between, but then we climbed back out of the Kilauea Iki crater, and then dropped down to the Kilauea Caldera floor.
Here's the floor from just a little bit above on the trail.
Looks like a Dr. Seuss landscape!
(Which I know all of y'all were going to say...)
Down on the floor. The Halema'uma'u crater is at the far left, just at the very edge of the picture. The Jaggar Museum is on the top of the ridge in the middle of the picture.
We be down on the floor. Halema'uma'u is just over Lynne's head.
Hiking back out...
So we left the park and started driving toward our condo in the Kona area (just south of Kona). But we had to stop and get some food first, and what better place than the southernmost bar in these United States? Exactly there is no better place. Well, unless you want some super friendly people... they seemed to be as friendly as they are ... north. But we got a beer and some food, and we can say we've been there!
Southernmost Bar. Only 19 degrees north!
Here's the restaurant. Lynne is sitting at our table beneath the parking sign there.
After food, we drove the rest of the way to Kona Magic Sands, and arrived just before it was dark, and found that we were Right. On. The. Water. (And just beyond that was the ocean...) The waves were pretty big, and it was so loud all night that we actually had trouble sleeping. But a really great spot...
The view from the lanai.
Woke up at the beach. And I mean right at the beach. Stumbled out onto the lanai and checked our surroundings in the full light of day. Beautiful! Made a little coffee, had a little breakfast, and generally didn't rush into anything in any hurry at all.
Morning ocean check.
Breakfast on the lanai.
Looking left.
Looking right.
And... oh my, looking straight out!
I'm pretty sure that's a Humpback, but it's hard to tell from here.
When we finally decided to get going, we drove south down to Kahaluu Bay to go snorkeling. The swell hitting the west coast was pretty big, and this was a really sheltered bay, and a good spot for getting used to snorkeling.
Looking out at the bay.
There were a lot of people here, and I really didn't expect to see much in the way of life, but... wow, got in the water, put my head under, and ... blam! Fish!
Blam. Fish.
Moorish Idol and Convict Tangs.
Raccoon Butterfly.
(Two animal names that are incorrect, I might add.)
Sea turtles! There were a couple of these in the shallows.
Check this out... a game of "Find the Fish!"
(There's one in there...)
We grabbed some lunch from Sundried Creations, and drove down to Kealakekua Bay. Right here is where Captain Cook was killed. There's a monument to him across the bay, but the historical park is right here.
Sat here and had lunch.
The monument is a little white thing across the bay where the mountain meets the low land.
It's a boat ride or a long hike to get there, and we didn't know that ahead of time... next trip!
Looking out at the ocean.
We had read that there were Spinner dolphins that would hang out in this bay to rest, and while we were sitting here, Lynne spotted some dolphins swimming along.
"Must be Spinners," I said.
"Why do they call them Spinner dolphins?" she asked.
"Well because they jump out of the water, and they spin," I said. "Um... yeah, just like that."
Whoa!! A couple of them did their jump and spin thing for us several times! Super cool. Actually, even cooler than super cool. I've always wanted to see Spinner dophins spin. Awesome! And no... there are no pictures. :^(
But if you want to see why they call them Spinners, check this out (about 16 seconds in...):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvrG0n9mKxA
They were doing that out in front of us!
After snorkeling and lunch, we went back to our condo where we relaxed a bit, and then I didn't go bodysurfing. After not bodysurfing, we chilled on the lanai for a bit more, and then we went out for dinner because we just didn't have any food to cook in the fridge.
Dinner at the Tropic Tap House
I could sure get used to this whole breakfast on the lanai overlooking the ocean thing. Anyway, that's what we did. Again. Local fruits in a big bowl with yogurt and granola. Yum.
Papaya and bananas and pineapples, oh my.
We watched the end of the Ronde Van Vlaanderen on line, because it turns out that even if we're not actually IN Belgium at this time of year, they run that race anyway. Good race, and brought back a lot of memories watching them ride past the places that we were standing a year ago. Made us really want to go back! (I know, I know... waaaah... we're sitting on the lanai overlooking the beautiful Hawaiian ocean, and we're sad that we're not travelling in Belgium right now. Our lives totally suck.)
We finally got going and drove south down to the Pu'uhonua O Honaunau Park and the place of refuge. Pu'uhonua O Honaunau is a sacred spot where Hawaiian chiefs were buried and their bones brought extra protection to the area. There's info about this place here if you want more.
Statues and the building that housed the chiefs' bones.
Protector statues.
Lynne stays safe behind a statue.
Some of the trails were closed because of the high surf that had come through in the last few days, so we couldn't walk everywhere. So instead we went off to the tidepools nearby and poked around.
Walking out to some tidepools.
There's a little eel in this tidepool.
After tidepools, it was time to get IN the water instead of walking around it. So we walked just around the corner to Pae'a ("Two Step") where there was a nice entry into the water by stepping down the rocks. Twice. (Weird...) The water was clearer and bluer, and generally much nicer than yesterday's spot. So here's a bunch of pictures from there...
And I will first say that Lynne didn't really see any of this, and had no idea how good the snorkeling was. It seems as though she got some sunscreen on the inside of her mask, and it would instantly fog up when she put it on, and could never really clear it. I hadn't realized until later how bad it was. Bummer!!
Yellow Tangs.
Also fish.
The state fish... it's a Lagoon Triggerfish. Or a Picasso Triggerfish. But really, it's a...
Humuhumunukunukuapua'a. Duh.
Ornate Butterflyfish.
Here's a little video of a short dive along the coral. Gives a decent idea of what it was like down there.
Cruising along the coral.
Crown of Thorns Starfish.
Reef killer and nasty all around dude!
Also fish too.
(Later found to be Yellowstripe Goatfish)
Freckled Hawkfish.
Orange Spined Tang
An Orange Band Surgeonfish in front of ...
an Orange Spined Tang in front of ...
A Yellow Eyed Surgeonfish.
Trumpet Fish!
(And some Yellow Tangs)
We got out of the water, and did a little more tidepooling on the rocks near the entry. And this guy comes out of hiding and puts on a little show for us. Niiice.
Snowflake Moray Eel.
(A little over a foot long?)
Here's a short video of him wiggling around. He was pretty cool to watch.
Wiggling Snowflake Moray Eel
We also went to a coffee plantation to do a tour of how they do things, and after listening to the woman talk for five minutes, we just had to walk away... Drove back to the condo, and I finally jumped in to do a little bodysurfing. The waves had come down enough that I had some idea as to where all the rocks were in order to actually get in the water. And I got a bunch of fun rides even though it was now a little small. But it was warm. And nice. And I was bodysurfing in Hawai'i.
Back into the condo and we did a super thorough cleaning of Lynne's mask with dish soap and such and let it dry, and did it again. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.
As it turns out, Lynne has a friend from her Hula class that has a house in the Kona area, and she and her husband and kids were staying there, so we drove up the hill (right behind where we were staying... super close!) and had dinner and watched the sunset from there. Really nice evening.
Sunset from Craig and Mary's.
(We could see our condo from here. Just to the right of that chimney and pointy roof down there.)
Once again, a very relaxed breakfast on the lanai to start our day. No rush... hmm, what are we going to do today...?
I'm getting better at relaxing, I think.
We drove north past the airport up to Beach 69 just south of Hapuna State Park. It's sort of a locals beach that's at mile marker 69 off the main highway. It's nice because there are trees right down to the water in places, and you can get some shade if needed. There was a bit of chop, and it was pretty obvious that the visibility wasn't as good as yesterday, and there was some surge, and ... so we jumped in the water to try a little snorkeling. On the plus side, Lynne's mask worked great! No fogging up, and all was well. On the minus side, the visibility was no where near as good as yesterday. (But back to the plus side... this is Hawai'i where bad visibility is still way better than home. And the water is just a touch warmer...)
Not entirely sure, but I think this is a Porcupine Pufferfish.
Four-Spot Butterflyfish.
Ornate Butterflyfish.
Sailfin Tang
Moorish Idols
Beach 69.
We snorkled around that rock to the left out there, and there's a nice sandy beach over there, too.
Again with the tidepools!
After leaving the beach, we went to Kohala Burger and Taco in Kawaihae, and had an oddly expensive meal of a burger and two tacos for $38. I'm still a little stunned thinking about how much it was. I mean it was good, and the fish was local, but it wasn't THAT good. The people were really nice, and it was a cool little spot, but sheesh!
On the way back to Kona, we stopped at a lava tube by the side of the highway. It only went back a little ways, and then it had collapsed. But we hiked along the top, and it was clear that it went a long way; there were all these places where the top had fallen in, and you could see down into it. Another one of those, "wow, this was all molten rock at one point" moments.
Going down to the mouth of the tunnel.
Inside a little ways.
Looking back out at Lynne.
Standing over one of the collapsed sections.
(Perfectly safe. Really.)
After hiking around the lava tube a bit, we headed back to our condo again, and ... jumped in the water because why wouldn't we? So nice to be in the water without a wetsuit, and being totally warm and comfortable.
After swimming, we walked back to the condo and made a little food and started to pack up to go home (boohoo). Based on the success of the mask cleaning, we decided to do an early morning snorkel down at Pae'a again before we had to rally and get to the airport. Lynne needed to snorkel there with a clear mask for sure!
And then we relaxed and watched the sunset...
Cheers!
Panorama.
Dropping into the sea...
Tuesday, 4 April 2017
So sad... last day.
Had a quick breakfast and jumped in the car to go to Pae'a (about 35min south). As soon as she put her head under... thumbs up awesome! So great.
A bunch of pictures...
Had a quick breakfast and jumped in the car to go to Pae'a (about 35min south). As soon as she put her head under... thumbs up awesome! So great.
A bunch of pictures...
Even before getting in, you can see the Yellow Tangs.
The Something Something Fish.
(I have no idea what this is...)
Raccoon Butterflyfish Out of Focusi.
Green Sea Turtle.
There he is again.
And again...
Schooling Yellow Tangs.
More Yellow Tangs.
More Yellow Tangs, a Parrotfish, and a couple Butterflyfish(?) that I'm not sure of.
Parrotfish emerging from the Yellow Tangs.
Yellow Tangs, and those other fish I still can't identify.
Yellow Tangs and other things that are also fish.
Look, Yellow Tangs.
Not a Yellow Tang! (What was up with all that, anyway?)
Humuhumunukunukuapua'a!
Trumpetfish.
Achilles Tangs.
Drat! Back to the Yellow Tangs.
Look. Fish.
Okay, I can do this... Moorish Idol, Yellow Tangs, Ornate Butterflyfish, Threadfin Butterflyfish.
Come on, everyone say it with me...
Humuhumunukunukuapua'a.
Sailfin Tang.
Snorkely Babefish.
Sigh. Out of the water and back to the condo. Made a omelette for lunch with the last of the eggs, and sat on the lanai one more time.
Goodbye view.
Do we have to leave? Waaaah.
Okay then. There you have it. Not much else to say. Got home at around midnight, and went to work the next morning. Talk about a rude awakening!
posted by pablo @ 11:48 AM
1 comments
1 Comments:
Aloha,
Looks like you guys did it right! We hope you had a great time while here at Volcano Inn! That does look like we have you in that picture, how funny, you make great models!
Anyway, mahalo for the kind review and making us a part of your trip, Aloha!
Volcano Inn Staff
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