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A first-ever trip to Hawaii. My expectations are high, but the islands exceeded my wildest dreams. The islands are stunning, spectacular, magical, incredible. Maureen and I will return soon.

Hawaiian Islands, part 1

Domz
2004-04-06 18:41:40

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from the air. When we are there, active lava is pouring into the Pacific. Great clouds of white steam were rising up at this southeastern island location. It is astounding to observe brand new land being formed, and we are, from the chopper, able to observe the red-hot lava as it rolls into the sea (photo on right).

After this aerial treat, the guidebook leads us to a small, 8 x 14 spring- and ocean-fed volcanic pool of water that was like a bathtub, with clear water at 90 degrees. The Highway 137 that leads to this pool is canopied with colossally tall trees.

Overall, we drive about 350 miles on our second day on Big Island.

Our third day starts off with a dive with the Big Island Divers. The first dive is at Golden Arches, which was a wonderous dive location with several swim-through arches. We spot a large number of moray eel, hawksbill turtle, crab, and numerous jet-black sea urchins. Our visibility is an impressive 90 feet. Overall, we find the coral reefs here are very healthy.

Our second dive is at Pine Trees, which has a number of named features such as The Aquarium, Suck-'Em Up Cave, and Skull Cave. Suck-'Em Up turns out to be a delightful treat. You enter a small tunnel. (During our entry, we spotted a 7-foot white-tipped reef shark resting a few feet from us in a hollowed out rock formation above sand.) Once you enter a turn in the tunnel, the strong sea surge through the tunnel sucks you up and propels you out into open water.

This second dive includes our sighting a number of extremely large moray eels (as thick as baseball bats). Our visibility is an acceptable 75 feet. We also notice an unusually large number of black and grey sea cucumbers on the ocean floor. Some of the tropical fish we see on these dives are parrot fish, white mouth moray eel (BIG), achilles tang, moorish idols, and yellow tang. I am told that the bright yellow color of the yellow tang, and ...