We flew to the Big Island of Hawaii last Sunday on Hawaiian Airlines, a 45 minute flight, to enjoy the vacation part of our “vacation”. After lazing about on Raven, we are making up for it here with a tight schedule of organized activities, something each day. As a result I am behind on the email, but will attempt to do some catching up with two entries to start off September.
We are staying at the Fairmont Orchid on the recommendation of our travel agent. It is a beautiful property situated on 30+ acres of oceanfront property in an area populated by large luxurious hotels. We are about 10 miles away from the Mauna Kea Resort which is currently closed due to structural damage discovered after the October 2006 earthquake here on the island. The quake measured 6.7 on the Richter scale and the epicenter was within 10 miles of the Kohala Coast on the northeast side of the island where our hotel and most of the other big resorts are clustered. I believe the Mauna Kea is scheduled to reopen in December of this year, after a $30,000,000 renovation.
I was very surprised by the landscape here – predominately (at least on this dry side of the Big Island) great sweeping desolate vistas of old lava flows and volcanic peaks, much more so than I had ever imagined. Everywhere are great fields of lava piled many feet deep from old flows. The view from the balcony of our hotel room looks out over the ocean and green landscaped grounds, and at night there is not an electric light in sight for miles – just total darkness accompanied by the sound of the surf (and the sprinklers).
After enduring the crowds on Oahu, the open space here is very refreshing. The island Hawaii is physically eight times larger than Oahu but has a population of only 175,000 compared to Oahu’s one million. Of course the threat of having one’s home swallowed by a river of magma may be a deterrent! One former subdivision is currently entombed under 65 feet of lava!
Monday morning we took a two-hour helicopter tour of the volcano and the waterfalls (on the rain forest side of the island) with Blue Hawaiian Helicopters. Only a couple of months ago Blue Hawaiian was transporting Harrison Ford and the film crew for an upcoming Indiana Jones movie, the fourth, due out next summer. The scenery from the helicopter was spectacular and the pilot’s informative dialog offered many interesting tidbits of Hawaiiana. The entire flight was videotaped, with two cameras on the helicopter’s runners focused on the landscape below, and a third camera mounted in the interior of the copter focused on the passengers, all with commentary included. A DVD of the entire experience was burned and ready to purchase only minutes after the flight ended.
Kilauea is only 4,091 feet high, more like a hill in appearance compared to the older, more massive volcanoes on the island, such as Mauna Kea (13,796 ft) and Mauna Loa (13,679 ft). However Kilauea is the most active volcano in the world at the moment, as it has been erupting continuously since 1984! This past Father’s Day in June a volcanic event named “Episode 56” collapsed the lava dome in the main crater and caused all visible lava flow to disappear underground, as well as cut off all lava flow into the sea. All the tour operators whose livelihoods depend on volcano tours had a nerve-wrecking couple of weeks when it appeared that they had lost the main attraction. However rivers of molten lava have since reappeared on the surface, although they still are not accessing the sea as yet. I was able to capture a few photos from the helicopter that I liked, almost abstract in design with the red molten magma and the convoluted ripples and folds of blackened crust.
We also flew over the Hamakua Coast on the northeast side of the island which is the wet windward side, with steep cliffs and waterfalls plunging vertically some 2,500 feet. The dry side of the island receives around 11 inches of rain per year; the rainy side in some areas receives upwards of 300 inches per year!
Due to exceptionally good weather conditions, our pilot Rick was also able to locate and show us the wreck of a B10 bomber from 1941. Flying in a cloud and making what he thought would be an emergency water landing, the B10’s pilot was extremely surprised to come down on dry land into a forest of trees. The crew of six all walked away from the wreck and were rescued 4 days later. When you see the photo of the crash site, you’ll be surprised at their luck.
Another interesting sighting on our tour – a decoy Air Force One parked at Hilo’s airport where the helicopter stopped to refuel. President Bush had a scheduled stopover in Hawaii last week, when he actually sneaked off for his surprise visit to Iraq. Apparently Air Force One is accompanied on its flights by two other decoy look-alike 747s, and this one was waiting out the Iraq trip here on the Big Island.
The helicopter tour was a great experience, but at its conclusion we still had more than half the day ahead of us, so thought we’d drive a few miles and explore a couple of towns not too far away. This eventually suckered us into totally circling the entire island, with a late afternoon stop at Volcanoes National Park. We didn’t make it back to our hotel until well after dark, having driven a couple of hundred miles with sightseeing stops on the way. But it was all fascinating stuff and well worth the marathon!