Horray for Hawaii!

Horray for Hawai’i

Our last island in Hawaii was divided into two, because it was so big!  We were on the Big Island of course!

The first part of this island was spent in a town called Hilo.  It wasn’t touristy and altogether not overly interesting. But it was just fine to be in a “normal town”. We positioned ourselves here to get closer access to my most “looked forward to” part of this trip – Volcano National Park!  We spent two full days exploring the park and I adored my time.  We hiked and stumbled up a volcanic cone, across solidified lava fields, past solid lava lakes, down crater rim hike, by sulphur banks and next to steam vents, we drove the Chain of Craters road too. It was fascinating to see all of the different ways that lava formed and cooled, sometimes in the air, raining down and collecting as fine particles, sometimes as it flowed, sometimes as it collected around an area. Absolutely captivating stuff.  I did not realize this until we were one day away from entering the park for the first time, but since the most recent eruptions in the area last year, there has not been any molten lava in the park. It’s all been sucked back underground.  I do have to say that I was a little crushed over this news. I have been planning certain pictures since we decided on this trip and lugging around a lens and equipment I wanted to use for those pictures for the entire trip! Regardless, our time in and around the park was fascinating and super enjoyable.

Some other fun things we enjoyed in this area was some short and beautiful waterfall hikes to Akaka Falls and Rainbow Falls.  I enjoyed the trees and vegetation as much as the very pretty falls themselves.  Akaka Falls is reportedly taller than Niagara Falls, but doesn’t have nearly the volume.  We tramped through the Kaumana Cave, a gigantic and pitch black lava tube.  We brought our own flashlights so that we could stumble through and look and imagine the great quantity of lava that must have flowed through there to create the huge tunnel

We drove out to the Mauna Loa Macadamia nut farm and factory and took a look around and ate lots of samples. Did you know it takes 300 pounds of pressure to crack open a macadamia nut? I want to know who was the first muscular person to figure out there was something edible inside.

We also did some learning at the Mokupapapa Discovery Center for Hawaii’s coral reefs and found out about the beautiful animals and fish that inhabit the farthest uninhabited tiny islands in the Hawaii chain. And spent some time at the Pana’ewa rainforest zoo. The only “rainforest focused” zoo in the entire world.  The highlight there were two tigers who gave the appearance of resting and laziness, until a man in an ECV wheelchair buzzed by, then they gave chase through the fence and rather looked like they wanted to eat him.

When our time in Hilo was done we packed up the car and look the drive, about two hours, to the direct opposite side of the island.  In driving the “Saddle Road” we passed through the protestors, more accurately known as “Protectors of the Land” who were opposing the building of a brand new telescope on the Mauna Kea mountain.  This was quite a hot topic during our time there, and whenever I could bring it up, I tried to talk to locals to get their opinion.  In all of my conversations I found only one person – a 70+ year old Vietnam veteran who thought it was progress and would bring jobs.  Every other local was not in support.  Objections ranged from desecrating a traditionally sacred mountain, drilling down 13 stories and disrupting the water table and source of water for the town, destroying habitat and land when there are other telescope locations on other mountains that could just be refitted, not providing jobs to the established people on the island etc etc. All of these arguments were enough to convince me and the following event sealed the deal.  The day that we drove past Mauna Kea, was the same day that Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was THERE. Meeting with the elders and offering his support to the cause. I existed in the same time and space (well, around the same time, I don’t know when exactly he was there) as that beautiful man!!

Our last location to stay in Hawaii was a town called Kona. A pretty, volcanic rock place. We enjoyed walking around the historical town, housing such structures as the oldest government building across the road from the oldest Christian building of the islands. We walked around an artist town called Holualoa town and while Nathan couldn’t stand the stuck up attitudes of the residents in the coffee shop, I thrived on the wafts of creativity floating through the air. We also explored the Pu’uhonua O Honaunau National historical park where half of the park demonstrated Hawaiian precontact structures and lifestyles and the other half of the park was an actual historical “place of refuge”. So in ancient society, if you committed a crime, you could literally run away to this place, and if you made it there through huge surf breaks on very sharp lava rocks, you could be absolved of your crime and cleared of guilt.  Easy peasy.

We went snorkeling several times and saw some interesting things, turtles, humuhumunukanukapua’a, and lots of reef fish. I followed a jellyfish (My FAVOURITE underwater creature) for about 15 minutes as it trolled along and camouflaged on various rocks.  So so so so so so so cool.

To celebrate Phylis and Bebee’s anniversary, we took them to a fancy luau, hosted by a local hotel.  This was a fun experience with examples of Polynesian dancing and story telling from all over the Polynesian Islands. Local food, including a Kalua pig – roasted underground. Tattoos, flowers and great music.  It was a fun evening.  We were a lot of people packed into a tight space, but Lily charmed everyone and went to sit on stranger’s laps and held their hands… I think I need to keep an eye on her. J

Nathan and I elected to do the extremely expensive Manta Ray night dive.  It was a spectacular experience and ultimately (ultimately) worth every penny. We started with an afternoon dive.  This was a really great company we were with, that allowed you to surface only after YOUR air was out, not the quickest user of the group, so I had my longest dive of my life at 75 minutes. By the end of it, I was almost thankful to surface as I was getting cold.  How do fish do it? We had our surface interval on the boat and were served a nice little dinner. While eating we watched the sun lower and waited and watched and I finally saw the Green Flash as the sun set! We had to wait until it was totally dark out and then we jumped back in the water, a super creepy experience in the dark.  We each had a powerful flashlight and we descended to the bottom to a “campfire” where there was a big light, pointing up, placed out there on our first dive.  Besides allowing us to see, these lights were to attract plankton and provide a meal for any manta rays who might wander our way. We knelt on the bottom, shining our own lights above our head, and… waited… We were told that we would wait for 20 minutes and then call Plan B, also known as Plan Bummer – where no manta rays show up and we go for a nice little night dive.  We waited… 20 minutes came and went and our dive guide swam in front of us and collected us up, no mantas and we were going for a little swim.  I was crushed, but tried really hard to get myself cheered up, the dive was interesting – I saw sleeping parrot fish, my favourite fish and I could get quite close to it.  Also a huge hermit crab.  By 15 minutes into this part of our dive I was enjoying myself and saying that we could always try again tomorrow.  It’s hard to navigate underwater, especially when you add a layer of darkness to your dive, so I didn’t even realize that we had turned around until suddenly we were back upon the light of the “campfire” and there to greet us was Big Bertha!!  The largest of all the resident manta rays.  Her gorgeous wings spanned 12 feet wide and her mouth was easily over 2 feet.  We scurried back to our spots on the sandy bottom, knelt and watched her dance and twirl right over our heads.  She was happy to filter up the plankton that we attracted with our lights and we were more than thrilled to be graced with her beautiful presence.  She soared through the water, and came within inches, or less of our heads to collect the plankton around us. All too soon we had to leave and our guide turned off our “campfire” light and with a flick of her fin, she was gone into the darkness.  One of the most magical experiences of my life.

Highlights:
Jessica - the night dive where I had resigned myself to not seeing a Manta Ray and then she appeared! Watching the Manta Ray twirl and swoop, fly underwater and approach the tops of people’s heads. Also all the hiking and looking at all the different kinds of lava rock and volcanic formations in Volcano National Park was fascinating.
Nathan - Manta Ray scuba dive. She almost ate my head.
Lillian - swimming and jumping and playing in the pool. Dancing at the luau. (Going to the party in her party dress to dance and celebrate food. Watching the Kailua pig be uncovered, getting pretty flowers, getting a turtle tattoo)
Phylis - watching Lily learning jump into the pool with a divers stance and no fear. Attending the luau. Watching Lily dance and attempt to be involved in the performance, and adopting another set of grandparents.
Bebee - hiking all the way to the highest crater and looking inside a volcano.

Lowlights:
Jessica - no molten lava to see in Volcano National Park. Figuring out that the reason I could not find any lava rock bracelets were because it was illegal to use Hawaii lava rock for commercial purpose, and there went my souvenir idea.
Nathan - the potential that the GoPro did not record during the Manta scuba dive. (It did! Yay!) No lava.
Lillian - days where there was lots of driving “Mommy out. Mommy out. Mommy out. Mommy out”
Phylis - the location of our house in Hilo. (Not near anything interesting)
Bebee - choosing not to risk hurting my knee and not going into the lava tube