Hawaii was created out of fire and water. Volcanoes spewed fire from vents in the ocean floor, making a string of islands in the middle of the sea. That process continues today. Kilauea, on the east coast of Hawaii, erupted in 1969, leaving a crater which plants are just now poking through. We traipsed across it on October 24, 2016. We also walked through the Thurston Lava Tube, a tunnel 20 feet wide and a quarter mile long, made when lava traveled at different speeds and temperatures inside and outside the tunnel, with the inside of the tunnel eventually collapsing. The race for us was to get to the tunnel before the hoards of tour buses!
Some of the Kilauea craters are still smoking.
The Kilauea-Iki hike is a dramatic, five mile walk into and across the crater from the 1969 eruption. The trail wound down and down and down, then across a rough, black moonscape, with tiny weeds and straggly trees just starting to appear through the lava.
We paused for lunch at Volcano House, a restaurant with a view over Kilauea's craters. We enjoyed the "Hawaiian special," served in a Japanese bento box. It included tasty bits of fried fish, rice, potato/macaroni salad, green salad, poi, and coconut pudding.
Our neighbor, Nancy Monson, told us that the one adventure we couldn't miss was the night snorkel with manta rays. It was advertised all over the island, and we were glad we made time for it. Groups of tourists, including Dave and I, climbed into the sea without life jackets, but hanging onto a contraption consisting of search lights pointing into the sea, with a metal railing around the outside. Manta rays were attracted by the lights, which lit up plankton in the water. We dangled in the sea for 40 minutes before manta rays appeared, but when they did, it was spectacular. They circled around, as if in a water ballet, with their mouths wide open to scoop up the plankton.
(No, this is not Dave and I, but we looked pretty similar).
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