Pics by Loretta
Aloha from the Big Island of Hawaii!
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| Aloha Shack at Hookena |
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| Hawaiian Lava Beach |
Well, actually, we recently returned from Hawaii and just in time! (More on that later)
Yep, we just returned from a month long stay on the Big Island. We celebrated our 10th anniversary back in November and both of our birthdays are in April, so we decided to splurge a bit and go on a special 'vacation'. We spent two (2) weeks on the west side of the island and then two (2) weeks on the east side, staying in VRBO's (Vacation Rental by Owner).
So how would we describe our four (4) weeks in that paradise called Hawaii?
Cloudy and wet! It was un-Hawaii-ish, but we had a great time. We talked with many locals that told us "this is the wettest spring I can remember". We probably had four (4) blue sky days during our entire stay. We did have plenty of breaks in the clouds to allow us to 'catch some rays', but really nice blue skies were few and far between, making for some 'milky' photos.
Our first two (2) weeks were spent on the west side of the island. The (ahem) dry side.
The VRBO we stayed in here was near the town of Captain Cook on a hillside overlooking the Pacific Ocean 1,000 feet below. It was sitting on a large, heavily foliaged piece of property full of avocado and papaya trees and new birds we'd never seen before. We spent every morning having our coffee on the lanai (Hawaiian for porch) watching the birds and gazing out towards the ocean.
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| Our View from the Lanai Pacific Ocean in far Distance |
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| The Back Yard and Rainbow |
This side of the island is the Kona side and this is big time coffee country. There are coffee farms everywhere. We took a tour of the Greenwell Coffee Farm, which they claim is the oldest on the island, with coffee trees dating over a hundred years old - that still produce!
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| Greenwell Farms |
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| Learning about Coffee |
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| Coffee Beans |
The tour was very informative and it ended with a nice selection of various roasts of Kona coffee samples. Quite yummy! Kona coffee is VERY expensive, selling for $30 per pound and UP!
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| Greenwell Coffee Selection |
Another crop grown around here is Macadamia nuts and they are delicious! We also toured the Mauna Loa macadamia nut factory. You follow the road for about 2-3 miles through the orchards of Macadamia nut trees to arrive at the packaging factory. Surprisingly, it was really not a very big operation.
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| Macadamia Nuts |
While here on the Kona side, we got in a few hikes and did some snorkeling. We saw Green Turtles swimming in the water and snoozing on the beach.
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| Green Turtle Honu |
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| Still Sleepy Green Turtle |
We visited some historic sites and learned a little about early Hawaiian culture. A lot of it was rather brutal! We're talking human sacrifices!
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| Pu'uhonua o Honaunau National Historic Park |
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| Part of the Great Wall Constructed over 400 Years Ago 12 Feet Tall |
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| Canoe House Halau |
We tried to visit every beach we could, relaxing in our chairs, listening to the waves, and smelling the floral laden fresh salt air.
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| Punalu'u Black Sand Beach |
Everywhere we went, we were birding and like mentiioned earlier, seeing NEW birds we'd never seen before. And identifying these birds was relatively easy, as the variety of birds way out in the remote Hawaiin Islands is limited.
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| Saffron Finch |
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| Gray Francolin |
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| Yellow Billed Cardinal |
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| Pacific Golden-Plover Kolea |
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| Java Sparrow |
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| Yellow-Fronted Canary |
After two (2) weeks, we moved to the eastern side of the island, the (ahem) wet side. As we drove closer to our eastern side location, you could tell that this was the wet side as the vegetation was even more lush. That being said, the whole island is incredibly lush with vegetation so thick, it felt at times like we were at Jurassic Park. We didn't see any dinosaurs, but they did film parts of the movie in Hawaii.
Our VRBO here was located outside the small town of Pahoa, two (2) blocks from the ocean. Our mornings on the lanai here were accompanied by the sound of the waves crashing violently against the rugged, rocky coastline.
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| Crashing Waves |
This being the wet side, there are numerous waterfalls and we visited a few of them.
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| Rainbow Falls (Without the Rainbow) |
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| Akaka Falls |
We walked around the town of Hilo and checked out many of the small parks nearby.
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| New Land |
What we did the most, though, was visit Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.
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| Hawaii Volcanoes National Park |
The Hawaiian Island chain was formed by volcanoes. The Big Island of Hawaii is made up of five (5) volcanoes. The two (2) volcanoes with the most recent eruptions are located in the national park. Mauna Loa last erupted in 1984, which sent lava flows towards the town of Hilo.
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| Lava Flows to the Sea |
Kilauea has been continuously erupting since 1983, and this is where the action was happening while we were there.
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| Active Volcano |
The Jaggar Museum observation area overlooks the 950' wide lava lake located in the crater that is inside the caldera of Kilauea. This crater is called Halema' uma' u. The observation area is 1 1/4 mile from the lava lake. So, basically you have the Kilauea Caldera (biggest hole), then the Halema'uma'u crater (mid sized hole) and finally, the lava lake (smaller hole).
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| Jagger Museum |
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| Halema'uma'u Crater with Lava Lake Inside |
The way it was explained to us, this lava lake was not visible since 2015 as it was located deep within the crater. All that was visible was an orange glow at night. The lake had been slowly rising and about the day before we arrived, had risen enough to be able to see the surface with lava being blasted into the air in various and ever changing locations across the lava lake. This is what we were able to observe the day we arrived and it was so mesmerizing, we stayed until after dark, when it became totally awesome!
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| Close up of Lava Lake with Lava Action |
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| The Lava Lake at Night |
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| Lava Lake |
Over the next few days, the lake continued to rise and then overflowed into the Halema'uma'u Crater raising the crater floor an estimated 25 feet! The lake then fell out of sight and then rose again several times. It was alive and breathing - it was Pele', the Goddess of the Volcano! All of this happened during our two (2) weeks of visits to the park.
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| Jagger Museum Observation Deck The Day the Lava Lake Overflowed |
And then.....
There is another active crater on Kilauea in a more remote location, which is off limits to the public, called Pu'u'O'o. Things really started happening at Pu'u'O'o when it's crater floor collapsed due to increased seismic activity on Monday (4/30) afternoon. Two days later our vacation was over and we flew out of Hawaii on Wednesday (5/02) night at 9:00 p.m.
The very next day on Thursday (5/03), there were stronger earthquakes and cracks formed in the ground in the Leilani Estates subdivision, which is located just 5.3 miles from the VRBO rental we had been staying at in Pahoa. Conditions continued to deteriorate from there, with more cracks in the subdivision roadways and lava starting to spew from the cracks, leading to mandatory evacuations and bigger earthquakes, including one on Friday (5/04), rated at 6.9, which is the strongest earthquake to hit Hawaii since 1975! If you've seen the latest news headlines, you know the situation continues to deteriorate.
I guess we timed that just about right, wouldn't you say?
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| Serenity |
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| Pele Hawaiian Volcano Goddess |
