Mar 15 - Hilo, Hawaii

March 15, 2008

There are whales off our bow!!!!! We went topside to watch the sail away from Hilo ad there were a bunch of whales all around us. We saw many spouts from whale blows, and a few tails slapping the water as well as humps showing above the waterline… Really cool!!!

We woke up early this morning and had a great breakfast. We met up with Christine and Ed and headed to the port where we were picked up by a van that took us to the airport to pick up a rental car. We drove to Volcanoes National Park and saw Kilauea, the most active volcano in the world which has been continuously erupting for over 20 years.

The size of the caldera (live crater) is awe-inspiring. We went to the Jagger museum and got to see the seismographs go wiggly while a couple of good earthquakes were going on. The change in vegetation type and amount is really interesting to see as we approached the top of the caldera. There is a road which goes all around it but half was closed due to life-threatening levels of sulphur dioxide gas being emitted from the volcano. We instead went to see the vent field which continuously puts out lots of steam from different vent holes – it was hotter that the steam in the ship’s sauna!!! We then proceeded to visit an old lava lake from lava flows of 5 years ago which continue to smolder to this day!!! After that awesome experience we drove back towards Hilo and stopped at the Mauna Loa macadamia nut factory.

This place is right in the middle of a 225,000-tree orchard and processes over 40,000 tons of macadamia nuts every year. There was a self-guided tour and a visitor/sales center where we were able to buy lots of macadamia treats to take back with us. There were all kinds of types and flavors. If I tried to list them all I’d probably go nuts (HAHA). Our next stop was at Hilo Hattie’s, a famous local shop where one can buy anything Hawaiian. We picked up a few things and continued on to Akaka Falls.

These falls drop 420 feet straight down and you get to them by walking through a trail that winds its way trough a rain forest. It was really cool to experience the nature and the scenic wonder. We then stopped at Akaka Falls Village, a picturesque little placid collection of houses and shops where we had lunch. We also drove thought a scenic road that borders the ocean. The views that we got of bays, beaches, rivers, brooks, waterfalls, forests and cliffs were gorgeous. Pictures don’t do them justice – I wish I had a hi-def video camera to capture as much of the splendor as possible to bring back with us. After dropping off the SUV we headed back to the ship. We watched the sail away and got to see some whales. Before dinner we went up to Paul and Angela’s suite where we’d been invited for champagne. Dinner was very good today and we headed back to the cabin after bidding our new friends adieu. We stopped off at the internet café and did the online check-in for tomorrow night’s flight back home. We then finished packing and put our checked luggage outside our cabin door for pickup. Tomorrow we debark in Honolulu early in the morning and plan to rent an SUV in order to drive around the entire island before out 9:30PM flight…