Hilo

As we awoke this morning, our ship was easing into the harbour of Hilo, on the big island of Hawaii. Our stateroom had a nice view of the city and volcano Mauna Kea. The skies were blue, the air was hot. Nothing like starting the day with 80 degrees. We may have dodged a bullet on the weather, since Hilo is the wettest city in America with 120" annually. Hilo has been wiped out by tsunamis three times, last time being 1960. Our bus driver today, James was our best guide yet with intelligent information. Off on tour, our first stop was Rainbow Falls named for the perpetual rainbow at its base. Next stop was the nut house - that would be macadamia nuts. The macadamia is not natural to Hawaii and was brought here in late 1800's. This stop here consisted of basically a store with a cheesy self-guided video tour on the side. Next stop was the highlight of the day, Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. Kilauea is the active volcano here lieing in the shadow of the massive and ever threatening Moana Loa and today the lava was bubbling 20 or so metres high, giving off clouds of sulphur dioxide. The Halema'uma'u crater is within a huge caldera, once full of bubbling lava - actually the last time was 1974. The height of the lava pool varies daily with today's pool being 14 metres below the edge of the crater. A park ranger had a telescope set up to get a close up of the bubbling, a safe 1 and 1/2 kilometres away. AMAZING !! Halema'uma'u is watched over by goddess Pelehonuamea. We then drove to the end of the caldera to see it from a different angle and to view some of its steam vents. Further down the road was the Thurston Lava Tube, formed some 500 years ago. To get there we had to walk through an amazing jungle - I know, I know, it's a rainforest - path. The tube itself is about 40 kilometres long and we traversed about 150 metres of it. Next up was the 1974 lava flow and beside this was Lua Mana, a mini crater. It's amazing what grows in the lava! The last two stops of the day were to classic tourist money pits - an orchid store and a candy store. We were back to the ship at 4:00, so we had had a fabulously full and beautiful day. So far the big island wins in terms of what would bring us back to Hawaii.

Each time we return to our stateroom, we are greeted by a new towel critter. Following dinner at Jefferson's Bistro once again, we had a short reprieve before heading to the top of the ship to view the lava flow from Kilauea hitting the ocean. With the stars blazing brightly, it was an impressive show. Thanks Mother Nature!