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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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tang, and its recently large population at Big Island meant that when you flew over the coastline, you would see a yellow cloud of the tang. Today, because of the harvesting for aquariums, this yellow cloud is no longer seen. However, in our dives and snorkel trips, we nevertheless observe a large number of yellow tang.

Like nearly all Big Island dives, the drop off just beyond our dive sites plunges to 18,000 feet. It helps not to think about that kind of depth awaiting us...a black void where you cannot see where you've been or where you're going...

On both dives, I find that the submerged lava rock formations, tubes, and chimneys offer extraordinary dive experiences and views.

After our dives, we head down to Ali'ie Drive and enjoy a Kona Golden Ale microbrewery draft beer, which tastes especially good after our dive and day of Hawaiian adventure.

Overall, we drive about 45 miles on our third day on Big Island.

Wide awake at 5 a.m. the next morning (easy to do when you are 6 hours ahead of Hawaii time), we get an early start for our anticipated trip to Volcanoes National Park on the southeast side of the Big Island. This park contains the Kilauea Volcano, the most active volcano in the world. Each day, 300,000 to 1,000,000 cubic yards of lava erupts from this volcano, for a total of 2,150,000,000 cubic yards since its inception. The average temperature of the lava is 2,000 degrees. Kilauea covers 38 square miles, and has destroyed 181 homes. In 1990, the town of Kalapana was erased by the lava.

We find the Sulfur Banks to be boring when we are there. The Steam Vents are impressive-not so much because of the steam but because of the fantastic views provided of the Kilauea caldera. We discover that the Halermor'uma Crater is fantastic. And as advertised by both back-home friends and our guidebook, the Kilauea Iki hike is stunningly ...