Bob Versus The Volcano

Sea turtles all lined up at Punalu'u Black Sand Beach in Hawaii

Today was the day to take a 12-hour tour to see the best of the best on the Big Island of Hawaii.  The 12-hour tour will feature volcanoes, waterfalls, coffee, black sand beaches, lava tubes, and more.  It was a busy last day on Hawaii in Hawaii.

First stop:  a coffee plantation.

This is the Kona Coast and Kona is the coffee of Hawaii.  And on the coffee plantation we saw mango trees (above) and we saw banana trees (below).

Those are apple bananas, not the Cavendish that make up an overwhelming percentage of bananas imported into the U.S.  They make great banana bread.  Well, the coffee shop at the coffee plantation made great banana bread with those very same apple bananas.

What else did we see at the coffee plantation?  Pineapple plants.

Soursop.

Also known as guanabana in Latin America.  And we did see coffee plants:

But no coffee in production.  This is not the season for picking the coffee cherries for those coffee beans inside that get roasted into black magic perfection.  We did get to sample the Kona coffee -- dark roast of course was superior in every possible way to the medium roast -- but there was no coffee under production.  This is growing season, not picking season.

After a stop at a bakery for sandwiches and malassadas, Portuguese sweet donuts.  Which, we learned, are made from the same sweet dough as the Hawaiian bread.  Which is actually Portuguese in origin.  Just adopted by the Hawaiians.  After that, on to the next stop.

Second stop:  Punalu'u Black Sand Beach Park.

Even though there is some sort of monument/memorial/public art showing a child (or what appears to be a child) riding a sea turtle, all the signs agree on this:  do not ride the sea turtles.  Mixed messaging I would say.

The black sand on the beach is awesome.  It feels like sand.  But it's black.  It's from the black volcanic rocks being worn down into sandy powder by the forces of the ocean.

It's still black like lava rock.  I don't think it's silicon dioxide, like regular beach sand.  But it feels like sand.

And, as you can see, there is plenty of black lava rock just waiting for the ocean to pulverize it into black sandy powder.

It's like a real beach.  Only the sand is black.

They have a few black sand beaches in Iceland, too.  The landscape on the Big Island resembles Iceland, too.  Except the sun is much hotter.  And it's tropical.  And it has sea turtles.

Sunning on the beach.

I also believe that the waves pounding the Big Island are far more surf-able than those of Iceland, although there were no surfers out at this particular beach on this particular day.

But the waves were gnarly.  As the kids would say.  If the kids were surf dudes stuck in the 80s.

Third stop:  Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.

This was both awesome and disappointing.  First, the awesome.  The star volcano here is Kilauea.  As is true of all volcanoes on the Big Island except for an extinct volcano in the far north, an eruption does not mean an explosion of lava and ash shooting out the top, as we typically think of a volcano.  Instead, there is a massive crater filled to the brim with molten lava.  At the very top, a skin has formed so you do not see the red molten lava.

But you do see sulfur dioxide steaming out of cracks in the lava.  There is so much lava in this mountain that when Kilauea erupts, the lava spews from some fissure in the ground which might be several miles away.  It just depends on where the weak points can be found in the nearby portion of the earth's crust when Kilauea is ready to spew.  So we did not get to walk next to a flowing river of red molten lava.  Which is what I was expecting.  Because I've seen the pictures of that.  But that would only be during an eruption and the latest eruption spell ended a few days ago.  And it most likely would not be right around the crater, but at some fissure point several miles away.  In other words, I did not get to walk next to a river of molten lava as I had hoped.

This is the "rain forest" side of the Big Island.  Kona is on the western, desert side of the island.

So while I did not get to walk next to a lava river, I did walk through a lava tube.

It was not the same experience as walking next to a river of lava, but it was the best that I could on this trip of getting up close and personal with a volcano that had only stopped erupting two days prior.

Fourth stop:  Rainbow Falls.

At this point we are on the far eastern edge of the Big Island, just past the City of Hilo.  It is green.  It is a rain forest.  And, most importantly, it has water.

Oh, a few giant banyan trees next to Rainbow Falls.

You can't have a waterfall without water.

And that's why there were no waterfalls until we got to the wet side of the Big Island.

Fifth stop:  Akaka Falls.

Longer walk.  But through very interesting vegetation.  All for a much taller waterfall.

Unfortunately, for photography purposes, it was impossible this time of day to snap a photo of Akaka Falls without shooting directly into the sun.

 

I did get a few pictures, but not-so-great.

And, of course, the photos were shot at a distance to get the entirety of these rather high falls into a single shot.

Sixth and final stop of the day:  Waipi'o Lookout.

This is overlooking the sight of a village that was wiped out in a massive tsunami in 1946.  You can drive down there, but the road has a 25 percent grade.  And is a single lane, with no visibility as to what or who is coming in the other direction.  I'll stick to the lookout point.

And this concludes the Hawaii getaway vacation 2025.  I've now gone to all 50 states.  Time to keep seeing the rest of the world.

Watching the Whales

The boat for the whale watching cruise

So many touristy things to do in Hawaii.  And, oh by the way, I am a tourist.  So that means:  it's time to do something touristy.  A whale watching cruise.

The plan was to meet the cruise boat in the harbor south of Kona Town.  There were a lot of boats so it took awhile to see the sign for "Hawaiian Adventures."  But then there was our boat for the next three hours. 

The Artemis.  Seats about 30 or so cruisers.

We did see whales.  We did see dolphins.  Dolphins are easier to photograph for multiple reasons.

The fin for one thing.  Part of the dolphin is usually above the surface.  And they travel in packs.  And they come out of the water more frequently and more completely.  And, this next comment is a matter of perspective, they swim closer to the boat or else the boat can get closer to them.  Not sure which is which.

These are what are known as "spinner" dolphins.  Sometimes when they jump out of the water, they spin in the air.  It's brief.  It's not every jump out of the water.  But we did see if multiple times.  See:  yes.  Photograph:  no.

This wasn't prime dolphin time, but plenty were out and putting on a show.

Yes.  The water really was that blue in parts.  No special filters being used here.

End of the dolphin show.  Off to hunt some more whale.

We did see three sets of whales, which, as I understand it from talking with people who've done whale-watching cruises before, is typical.  Apparently tour operators only have the funds to pay for three sets of whales per tour to go out and perform and entertain.

We saw a mother and baby humpback whale very quickly after we left harbor.  Then we saw a pod of males likely duking it out for mating supremacy.  It's that time of year.  And, right as we were approaching the harbor to return, we saw another mother and baby.

This time I was attuned to how you photograph whales moving through the water in such a way as to get a photograph of a whale in water instead of just water.

Thar she blows.

It was a quick three hours.  We got to see sea mammals up close and personal.  Humpback whales and spinner dolphins.

But it was time to return to harbor since I paid for only three hours and I got about three hours and five minutes of sea mammal watching.

Back to harbor.

Where we saw a boat that identified as a shark.

And, one last animal species was sighted in these waters.

A sea turtle!  With a bunch of barnacles on his/her (not sure of the pronouns here) shell.  Something we did not see at the Sea Turtle Sanctuary on the Big-Population, Small-Size Island.

Late lunch was at a local brew pub.

I had, of all things:

Hawaiian pizza.  In Hawaii.  It actually was billed as "Hawaiian Luau" pizza, with kalua pork, pineapple, onion, and -- for some reason -- I did not see this at my luau the other night -- goat cheese.  All of a layer of BBQ sauce.  The goat cheese took over on the bites that had goat cheese.  The pineapple played well with the pork, as pineapple often does.  For a beverage, I had a Lavaman Red Ale.  A nice dark color.  Locally brewed Hawaiian beer, like beer in Latin America, is generally pale and weak.  This had color and flavor.  Enough flavor to at least fight to a draw with the goat cheese on the Hawaiian pizza.