Two If By Sea

After missing my guide on Friday night I headed back to the cabin in Volcano Village. My cell phone rang. It was an unfamiliar number, but I answered it anyway.  It was Shane the boat captain of LavaKai and the owner of Lava Ocean Tours, Inc, the company for which my “missing” tour guide worked.  Shane apologized and explained what had happened.  Shane had been out on the boat and unable to call when the company’s reservationist tried to find out why my guide was a no-show.  He offered to make arrangements for another hike but of course I had already done so.  He invited me to take a boat tour, compliments of him. I told him I was already signed up. All the better he said. And it would be at no charge.  I thanked him for his call and looked forward to meeting him on Sunday morning. He assured me if I didn’t eat much Saturday night, stayed away from coffee in the morning and sat in the back of the boat I wouldn’t get sick.  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Been there and done that. I get sea-sick in elevators.

On Saturday, after I managed to find my way out of Ed’s community it took an hour to get back to Volcano Village. It was around 10 pm.  I was tired. My feet hurt. I knew my legs would be sore from walking on the uneven lava surface.  A hot shower helped, but the unheated bathroom left me quickly climbing back into my sweatshirt and socks.  Before turning in I downloaded the photos and recharged the camera and phone batteries. The alarm was set for 2:15 am.  Sleep didn’t come easily despite my weariness. Every half hour I found the clock staring at me. I gave up at 2 am, gathered my gear and headed out into the mist and drizzle. 

Early on Saturday I donned those pressure point wrist bands that supposedly prevent seasickness. After I arrived at the launch site I popped one Dramamine. If I took two I would surely fall asleep.  In my backpack was plenty of water, and a bandana to wipe the puke out of my nose and off my face.  I checked to be sure had the wintermint gum to rid the bitter tasting bile from my mouth. I am a puking pro. The dread of sea sickness doesn’t stop me from going to sea, but by sitting in the car and waiting I psyched myself into a little queasy.  I got out and walked around the empty parking lot.

It was 65 degrees and a light mist fell as Shane went over the realities of the boat ride. “Not your dinner cruise. It will be rough and you will get wet. If you have any back problems, heart problems, respiratory issues, this is not your trip. Be honest with yourself. Pre-existing conditions will not be covered by my insurance. Remember you are on vacation. You don’t want to end up in the hospital.  If you want the smoothest ride, move to the back of the boat. Does everyone speak English?”  We nodded. “Good. Then I will assume everyone just understood what I said.”  If anyone had second thoughts nobody spoke up. We stood silently in the rain under the eerie yellow glow of lamppole #4.

We boarded the LavaKai by climbing a ten foot ladder while it sat on a trailer in the parking lot. I put on another layer under my rain gear and followed a couple of professors for the University of Wisconsin to the stern.   The boat was then taken to the launch and turned loose in the harbor. Shane turned the craft on a dime and we headed out to sea.  I glued my eyes to the dark ridge that hung on the western horizon. The boat cut quickly through the three foot sea swells flinging a sometimes heavy spray into the boat.  Periodically a dim pin point of light emerged from the shore line and disappeared.  Not too many people lived along this remote coast.

High above the lava plain sits the source of all the current flows Puu Oo.  The cinder cone’s glow hovered in a void of black. January marked the 30th anniversary of Kilauea’s ongoing eruption from Puu Oo.  Due to its remoteness inside the Volcanoes National Park most visitors never see it. Until now, I had never seen it. Those who hike the trail to the cinder cone are warned not to come closer than a mile. At the forest edge near Puu Oo all the vegetation is dead from toxic fumes.

 On the fast moving LavaKai, we soon approached the red glows from the ocean entries. The captain kept the boat moving by maneuvering the craft just outside the shore break.  The water is over a couple hundred feet deep here so waves break within a few feet of the fresh lava.  The crashing roar of waves on the advancing lava and stirred winds from its rapid cool wrapped the boat in a surreal environment. The boat’s engine’s growled in the churning surf fighting the draw of the sea to the rocks. Noxious sulfur swirled around us and invaded my lungs.

The crew tossed a bucket into the water and drew up the sea water so we could feel its temperature. I only dipped a finger in it as I didn’t want the sticky salt all over my hands as I operated my cameras.  It felt Jacuzzi hot.

The brightness of the lava ripped the night apart.  Frustrated by the cameras’ attempt to read the lava’s light, the bright glow reflected in the steam clouds and the stark darkness I had trouble setting a good exposure.  The sea’s motion made shots blurry. But I kept experimenting and wondered how everyone else managed to just shoot the scene. As day broke I got cleaner shots. 

I stopped myself to just look. To simply sit on the deck and view the awesome struggle of endless creation and destruction. Globs of molten lava spurted forth from behind a curtain of pink clouds that shrouded where it emerged from deep inside the earth.  Waves crashed ashore, ripping the red flow from the shelf and sweeping it unto the sea.  Burning rocks floated near the boat. In the raging surf the lava dramatically cooled, hissing in painful protest.  Vapors swept off the coast and danced across the black waters where reflected light patterns shattered beneath the lava’s demonic glare. Neither sea nor volcano ceased in its efforts to dominate the other.

I finally had seen lava flowing. New earth created and destroyed at the same time. Acres upon acres of new land have been created by Kilauea in the last thirty years, yet everyday the sea steals acres of the new creation.  The captain made one last pass at the lava before turning toward dawn and then back to Hale Isaac Beach. 

I never even thought about feeling sick. 

  

Of Tiger, Lava and Ed

While I enjoyed a masalada from Punalu‘u’s Bake Shop (“southernmost Bakery in the US’) Jeff, my lava tour guide, was t-boned in a Hilo intersection 50 miles away.  These two events effected the weekend.  Instead of stuffing my face with a creamy vanilla treat I could have checked my email and learned that my lava tour – a two to three hour one way trek to see molten lava spill forth into the ocean – had been cancelled for the night. Instead, I jumped back on the road destined for Volcano Village where I’d check into a cabin before heading south pass Pahoa to reconnoiter a boat launch a Hale Isaac Beach.   Finding the launch in broad daylight would save me precious sleep time on early Sunday morning. At least this was the plan. I found the 4 am meeting site for the boat tour at the end of a twisted narrow single lane road. Next, I hurried off to the End of the Road about 16 miles away.  Here the eruptions from Kilauea long ago consumed attempts to circumnavigate the island with pavement.  If I had known Jeff ended up in the hospital I would have detoured to Green Beach for a hike and some body surfing, my plans for Saturday.  

Instead, Friday’s events changed my weekend plans. Not the masalada, but his accident.  I expected to hike Friday evening to where the lava flowed into the ocean. On Saturday I planned to go to Green Beach and on Sunday morning a boat trip to sea lava.  Now Green Beach was out and the hike and boat trip were crammed together Saturday night and Sunday morning. I wasn't angry or frustrated.  I had tried for years to see lava and tigers.  Both have been elusive. Maybe it wasn't in my karma. What would one more day mean?  

It rained most of the Friday night.  The 4000 foot elevation cools Volcano Village nights and Mauna Loa keeps it wet.  In the tiny cabin I had rented I buried myself under two thick wool blankets, the weight pinning me to the bed where an electric pad took the damp coolness out of the sheets. Darkness crept quietly out the fern forest beyond the cabin’s lanai.  Crickets and other insects hummed in the depths of night.  By morning the birds’ symphony replaced the insects’. The light drumming rain did not stop. It didn’t matter to me. The day had to be easy and relaxed.  No super hikes to converse my energy for the night followed by a very early boat tour.  

 

I wandered up Mauna Loa Road a narrow ribbon that climbs the flank of the largest mass of mountain in the world. Mauna Kea is the tallest, but Mauna Loa is the largest. The ascent takes you through kiawe and lowland shrubs, up through forests of Ohia lehua, over barren rubble of lava flows through lust green woods and stark grey standing dead timbers.  The diverse climates compacted within such a short space.   The 15 miles road stops well short of the summit.  In a stunted forest at 6668 the hiking trail gently leads to the summit. It's a good two day hike.  But I was just to dream of the summit and take in the panoramic vistas below. Except for one lone car parked here, but I saw no evidence of others. Alone to enjoy the solitude.

As I rounded the corner of a tiny picnic shelter I came face to face with a tiger.  Knowing my poor luck in seeing lava and tigers a friend wished me luck in finding both on my birthday.  The striped cat made me laugh as if someone played a joke on me.  On a rock wall perched a stuffed toy tiger. Its beady eyes and silly grin stared at me in seemingly equal surprise.  I have wanted to see tiger in the wild.  I never expected to find one in Hawaii. I brought the little guy home with me to play with my bunny rabbits. 

By 4 that afternoon, I returned to the End of the Road. Ed, the local resident of whatever the village on the lava is called, sat on the trunk of his beater car. He slipped on a pair of socks preparing for our trek. Yes, it was now going to happen. After all these years. After all the tries. I was finally going to see lava flowing, and on my birthday!

When anyone wants to see lava from the county side (verses the National Park side) they have to cross private land before reaching beach access which is open to anyone. The private land entry is guarded by a security force hired by the county of Hawaii.  They  prevents the random tourist from walking through the property where the most crazy people buy and build structures completely off the grid – no utilities what so ever. Most of these structures are mere house shells, simple frames and skins that resemble Tennessee zoning codes - none.  When you can wake up any morning to find lava flowing down your driveway you don’t invest too much in the building structure.  The houses are of every shape, size and color.  They sit on treeless, green-less black lava flows, under a beating sun and in a wind that rarely stops to take a breath. Solar panels roost on roof tops and wind mills blades scream constantly in the wind.  The road that cuts a large U through the scattered houses is a crushed red cinder. Its dust settled on the inside and outside of my car almost immediately.  Ed's piece of paradise among the fifty-odd other residents goes for $300 a month.  

I asked if I could use the bathroom before we left.  He turned the water on so I could flush. I couldn’t close the bathroom door completely because from the corner of the door hung a closet’s worth of clothes. I took a quick look around. Open studs on the outside wall.  Electrical wiring snaked through the joists to the rocker panel light switch.  There was a shower area behind a curtain. A post card from Maui posed five girls with their tight round butts facing the camera. Ed was an ass man.  Before leaving the house I glanced at the carefully potted marijuana plants that lined the livingroom beneath his large picture window. 

Ed wore the exact same tie-dyed shirt he had on the previous day.  My sister called to wish me Happy Birthday as we headed down the cinder road. The wind made hearing my sister difficult. I was surprised we even had a connection. To reduce some of the noise, Ed switched to the up-wind side. I assumed Ed had worn the shirt more than just yesterday.  Made a mental note to stay up wind.

While picking our way through the “yards” of the community I saw the white billows rising from the coast. Our destination. I estimated it to be about three miles as the crow flies.  Longer on foot.  To be honest, I had little expectations of seeing any lava. Great hope, but little expectations.  Even as we headed toward the steam clouds I knew several things could prevent me from seeing the lava.  Its location could be hidden behind cliffs. The wind could trap the steam cloud over the lava. I could fall and break my neck before arriving – or after wards too.  Ed could be the total hippie flake I expected him to be and never get me there.  He already had my $100.

It takes a different kind of person to live out here. These are private loners who have gotten away from something, someone or some place.  While they share a community, they don’t readily share with the outside.  Nevertheless like all humans there is a need to socialize.  It was tough cracking Ed’s veneer.  When I asked him where he was from he responded, “my mother.” I laughed and said, “Oh a wise guy, huh?”  I let the ocean roar fill the voids of silence and the wind carry thoughts away. He finally said California.  Pieces of his life slowly filled gaps between carefully placed footsteps and pauses to absorb vistas.  It was brain cancer that sent him off to live where and how he lives. Later when the doctors couldn’t find any trace of it they asked what he had done. He said, “Got off your drugs and went sailing.”  Oh Boy. A sailor. He even used the word trippie and I suppressed my flashbacks.

Ed showed me where old lava covered new. The 1960 flows, The 80’s. Last year’s. Where old cinder cones eroded to their basalt core. Where lava shelves and domes collapsed.  We hugged the coast line, not the place where the guided tours trekked. The hike was longer, but he claimed smoother.  In places we walked on green sand. Then we paused in the shade of a huge cliff to wait. He wanted to be sure other guides were out here. If reports were that it was not safe due to new breakouts the tours wouldn’t run. He didn’t want to discover that accidentally. While we waited the man who would not take me on the lava after a beer broke out his bowl and marijuana. As he lit up his weed he commented, “Yeah I stopped doing drugs of any kind years ago.”  He did not offer me any.  I assumed it was medicinal.  But from that point I really paid attention to everything. And he became more talkative. He talked about the woman that the fishermen found a couple weeks ago. I had read about the body found floating in the water. 

 

The first time I saw red lava, I got the camera out and as I took the shot, a breakout on the upper cliff occurred. I was so excited as the flow drooled down the cliff to the sea. I apologized for acting like a little kid. “Hey, it’s your birthday.”  He seemed pleased that I got such a thrill out of the sight.

We arrived at an upper breakout. I was overwhelmed by the senses. Excited but cautious.  I watched a boy poke at the lava that had skimmed over and turned silvery gray.  He twisted the stick to reveal the thick glow of red that ignited his stick.  Heat filled the air in a way I had never experienced. To the eye the source was not apparent for it was from black lava on which we were standing.  I wasn’t just feeling heat. I was in the heat. On the heat.  The heavy air smelled of burning rock, not so much sulfur although that was part of it too. And the fresh lava crackled as it cooled.  We moved off the hot spot toward the cliff above the ocean entry. Immediately it felt as if I stepped off something that was alive.

We waited for the sun to fall behind Kilauea to reveal the spooky awesomeness in the battle between the sea and the lava.  Although after millions of years five huge mountains have risen from the depths of the ocean floor to form the Big Island of Hawaii, they are destine to sink back into the ocean from which they came. The sea wins every time.

I had packed trail mix to snack on. My guide had the munchies. He consumed it like a tiger on raw meat. I suppressed my laughter.  I had been so absorbed in watching the lava that when I turned around to retrieve my bottle of water, I was completely surprised by the number of people behind me. Ed and I sat at the ledge but away from the upper break out. Everyone else sat the next outcropping behind us. When one young man ventured ahead of us and even closer to the cliff a guide came over to retrieve him.

I wanted to begin the hike back when there was still a bit of daylight. My eyes and feet coordination would adjust easier.  From my caving experiences I knew the first few minutes inside a cave is a little disorienting when darkness shuts down senses. I always feel clumsy looking for the ground.  When you walk you rarely pay attention to foot placement.  Now every step mattered.  Headlights on the new lava sparkled. What didn’t sparkle were holes and cracks.  I never fell, but stumbled a few times catching myself with my hiking poles. A few times I accidentally stuck a pole tip into an empty space.

I became disoriented. The ocean was on the left, not the right side.  Ed was back-tracking. Going out the destination had been the red glow and billowing clouds. Returning, there was nothing to sight on but darkness. The upper ridge of Kilauea disappeared. The ocean disappeared. The lava beyond my head lamp disappeared. Only the stars, the wind and the ocean's roar remained in this world. We approached the jungle – the remnants that have been able to avoid eruptions. I made out  faint silhouettes of coconut trees. The distant whispers of insects and coqui, the tiny invasive frog with an ear-piercing chip, could be heard.  The closer we came the louder the sounds, but still I could see no lights expect the flashlights of other people returning from the lava flow.  

About 9 pm we crossed the cinder road and emerged in the village. Ed invited me in to use the bathroom and have a drink of water. He drew a map for me to get out of the community. I couldn’t believe how freaking dark it was. I was concerned that I wasn’t going to be able to find my way out. Before I left he sang Happy Birthday in a decent cocktail lounge voice and gave me a big hug.

Patience

I first came to this place eight years ago. He wanted to show me the island at least, that is what he said. In hindsight he wanted to seek out old runs, dives and friends to share a joint or two and talk story all while I was devoured by mosquitoes.  I wanted to hike, to stomp across the lava fields, to walk through barren calderas and get lost in the forest of man-size ferns and to explore the dark insides of a lava tube. But most of all, to see lava oozing from mysterious origins deep below the earth.  He didn’t bring anything but a pair of flip flops having little intensions to spend any time here. He’s interests were in kicking up twenty years of old dirt with the drop-out, hippie freaks and otherwise social errant outcasts of the 70’s.  His good old days.

The second time I came it was my birthday, just a couple months after the first visit.  Alone and on a mission: to see earth born on the same day that I was born.  In those days it was a three miles hike across the lava beds inside the Hawaii Volcano National Park.  I hiked during the day across what was an endless black sea following carrions assembled of the same black rock. The ground baked in the tropical sun. In a land of no features that provide a scale for size or distance the hike was a bleak trudge, but I finally came upon a hot stop where lava was a grayish charred red beneath a black glassy cape. It looked no much different from a dying charcoal briquette in a barbeque grill. Disappointing.  On the hike back I rendered first aid to a young woman who had fallen  and had a knee that looked like it had been in a meat grinder. 

After moving to Hawaii and buying my condo I took seven Brazilian kids to volcano. I warned them not to expect to see shooting lava fountains or enormous lakes of red.  That stuff was for tourist brochures.   Sure enough we saw no flowing lava, but we had a great time exploring the lava at the end of the Chain of Craters Road, the Holei sea arch, and Thurston Lava Tube. We stopped toured around Crater Rim Drive and stopped to look into Halema’um’a getting a snoot full of sulfur and other hazardous volcanic fumes.  One of the best trips I have ever had to Volcano despite not seeing the flow.  A week later Halema’um’a exploded in the middle of the night. The road is now closed and the Big Island air quality has been the worst ever.

I can’t count the number of times I have been here, alone or with friends, cousins, my dad and sister. The story is always the same. No 2000 degree molten lava here. I have made special trips to see it after hearing of new breakouts that have torched houses and buried roads. But the story is always the same. “Should have been here yesterday. Came right over the road.” Or, “This stuff you are standing on is from last week.”  I have called myself the anti-Pele. Pele being the goddess of the Volcano.  

This year the flow is once again reaching the sea at locations both inside and outside the park. The best and most exciting way to see the lava is by boat.  (That’s the best way if you don’t get sea sick, like me.)  I decided to invest in a weekend, my birthday weekend to see earth born. Rent a car, get a couple nights in a cabin in Volcano Village. Paul Revere I’d cover land and sea.  I hired a guide, and then signed up for a boat ride. All with the same company.   

The best viewing is at night. This means making a difficult trek on uneven black terrain that is not well marked. To do alone is crazy, but you also cross private land. Solo treks are something I’ll leave for the invincible twenty-somethings.  I arranged to meet my guide at 4 pm.  

I arrived early, use the port-a-potties and talk with the security guard who confirmed where I was waiting was the spot.  I waited. I called to be sure I was in the right stop.  The road to Kalapana is the longest dead end road in the world. It just disappears beneath a lava flow.  Makes it kind of hard not to be in the right stop. I waited some more. I waited long enough to start directing people down the road beyond the restricted area (I know this because I have been there before.).  I call the company three times. Fortunately I got the same reservationist, who felt for me, but she couldn’t get a hold of the manager to find out what happened to the guide.

Meanwhile, I watch another company shuttle people in.  After a full hour I drove back to the security staff. “Remember me?”

“Yeah. He didn’t show?”

“Nope. Anyway I can hike in alone.” I knew I couldn’t.

She empathized with my plight and introduced me to Shawn, an agent for another tour company. Unfortunately all the tours had already gone out.  But he didn’t quit there.

Most people who have seen me in the last two weeks know I need a haircut. In the humidity of Hawaii, my hair comes alive, frizzing and curling everywhere. Add the wind and the end of a 180 mile car ride after a three mile walk to get it and yeah I was looking a little tussled.  But my hair had nothing on the Ed’s fro that shaded his tie-dye t-shirt.  

Ed has a place in Kalapana a village of structures built on recent lava flows.  He was hanging with the boys who work the random tourist who wants to wander out to see the lava.  Shawn asked Ed, “you want to make a quick 100? Take this lady out to see the lava.”

“I would man, but I already had a beer. No can do.”  I am doing my best to asset the situation and Ed.  I can’t see Ed’s eyes hidden behind his Cool Rays.  He’s a lean dude, the kind I always associate with hard druggies, 70 dropouts and homeless.  I don’t smell anything. He speaks clearly. The security guard had not made any effort to shoo Ed away or discourage this free enterprise transaction.  In conversation I learn he’s  been on island for four years so he is not one of the friends mentioned in the first paragraph.  I appreciated that Ed acknowledge his current physical state.  He agreed that if I could be there at 4pm tomorrow he would gladly to take me out.  I agree.

The Shawn hugged me and then Ed did the same saying “Now I can get a new phone. My other one somehow got fried in the investigation.”

I asked if Obama had listened in on his conversation.

“No we had a murder out here last week and the government fried my phone.”

Hum, there ought to be some interesting conversations tomorrow.