July 2008 Log

July 2008

HOME SHOW in HILO

We went to the Home show this weekend. It was in the same stadium that Merrie Monarch takes place.

It was not as well attended as previous years, but it is always fun to go and see the displays.

UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII HILO RANKING

UHH was ranked 3rd in the Top 10 Sexiest Beach Schools by College on the Record. It resulted in some flames in the comment section.

GOLFING IN HILO

Golf in Hilo

Hilo has a very nice 18 hole municipal course with a driving range and great views overlooking Hilo Bay.

The greens are large and quite nice because of the rain and the fairways are long.

There is a restaurant and pro shop and cart rental.

BIG ISLAND MUSIC FESTIVAL in HILO

This weekend we went to the Big Island Music Festival in the Hilo highschool auditorium. It was interesting to hear the big names and young talent in ukulele and slack key guitar.

We learned from Ken Cameron, owner of Hilo guitars and ukuleles, that slack key guitar is tuned to a chord; that way you don't have to press on the strings to make a chord, just strum.

This song by John Keawe about the Big Island of Hawaii being his home was wonderful!

SWIMMING in HILO

We swim every week day at the small, friendly NAS pool in Hilo, but there is another pool in Hilo, the Kawamoto Swim Stadium. This huge swimming pool complex is 25 yards wide and 50 meters long. We went over there this week to swim laps.

The pool is set up for swim competitions with a covering, seating, large bathrooms, score boards, etc. The deep end is over 16 feet to accomodate diving.

We had a great time swimming laps at Kawamoto; it is not crowded and is very clean. The pool temperature is apparently cold in the winter, but this time of year the temperature was perfect.

There is a morning Masters swim team and other competitive swim teams that meet daily at the pool.

This is yet another incredible facility tucked away in Hilo.

YACHT in HILO

Update: Thanks to the YachtForums, the yacht below was identified as ICE (formally AIR) made by Lurssen and owned by Suleiman Kerimov, Russian oil and gas multi-millionaire. A recent article about him says he is buying stakes in Western banks; perhaps he is in town to buy into some of the Hawaiian owned banks like BOH.

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We had a visitor in Hilo bay this week. Check this out, this yacht has 4 stories and a helicoper!

SWIMMING AND AIRPLANES IN HILO

We were headed to our swimming aerobics this morning at the NAS pool and caught this picture of the military pilots from Oahu practicing landing and taking off at Hilo airport.

The NAS pool is located next to the old airport facilities. The NAS pool was part of the Naval Air Station built in Hilo near the end of WWII. Hilo airport has two runways, one which is very long and perfect to practice landings and takeoffs. The pilots fly over to Hilo and repeatedly land and takeoff; sometimes it doesn't look so pretty. We watch them land, as well as the morning Hawaiian Airlines and Go flights, while we are in the pool. It keeps us entertained.

Swimming daily is one of the many fun things we do in Hilo and this summer it has been particularily glorious with the warm pool water and bright sunlight.

A NEW KILAUEA VOLCANIC EXPLOSION

A fountain of lava spewed over 40 feet high in a Kilauea breakout about 2 miles east of the Pu'u'o'o vent and 6 miles from the ocean. Since the breakout, sulfur dioxide emissions have doubled mostly impacting the Kau district and Kona.

Here is USGS film of the surprise lava fountain on July 6. It takes a while for the movie to load, but it is worth the wait. The video shows other lava breakouts, all potentially new vents on Kilauea that may emit toxic gasses and lava in concert with the Pu'u'o'o vent and Halema'umanu vents already going off. A close-up of the fountaining lava starts in the middle of the video. Seeing it is another reminder to me that our nearby volcano is very alive and powerful.

FOURTH OF JULY IN HILO

The crowds filled Hilo Parks for the evening fireworks show.

INCREASED VOLCANIC ACTIVITY

Five breaks in the lava tubes connected to the Pu`u `O`o vent have recently occurred, likely due to increased lava flow that overflowed the tubes. The two eruptions, the Halema`uma`u vent in Kilauea caldera and the Pu`u `O`o vent between the town of Volcano and Hilo have been simultaneous erupting for 3 months. The eruptions and the vog that is generated as a result is showing no signs of going away.

Below is a closeup of a breakout. Picture courtesy of USGS images.

Sulfur dioxide is pouring out of both vents and lava continues to flow to the ocean as well as out of the ruptured tubes. You can see the Halema`uma`u vent in Kilauea caldera from several locations in Volcanoes National Park. You can view the lava flow into the ocean with the crowds by driving through Puna to the end of the road where a Hawaii County lava viewing area has been set up in Kalpana. The Pu`u `O`o vent is off limits to visitors.

Kilauea status reports from USGS

A TRIP TO KONA

We just returned from a few days on the West side of the island. It is wonderful that Hilo is close to Kona (less than 100 miles) so we can enjoy Kona without having to live there.

The drive there is really scenic. We went the fastest way, about 2 hours, which takes us down the Hamakua coast and past the town of Honoka'a and up

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through Waimea and down into Kawaihae (the second big port on the Big Island besides Hilo) and

along the Kohala coast toward the Kona coast and right into the Kailua-Kona traffic.

Our favorite way to "do" Kona, is to stay at the Kona Islander Inn which has very reasonable rooms that are close to everything. Since parking is a hassle near Ali'i Drive, the location allows us to walk everywhere. We keep the trip cheap by eating breakfast in our room on the lanai and cooking fish for dinner on the gas barbeques next to the pool and hot tub. We go out on the town for lunch, which is much cheaper than dinner. And we go out for drinks after dinner to check out the Kona night life and watch the crowds.

While in Kona this time, we enjoyed some of the touristy things like a luau, a snorkle boat trip, and night snorkeling with the manta rays. These tours are almost half price if you attend a morning session on buying a time-share, which our visiting relatives chose to endure.

The Bodyglove snorkel tour serves donut holes for breakfast and deli sandwiches for lunch. The boat is nice, but the location they take you is mediocre.

The water is too deep to see much while snorkeling. The water was cold and very rough as well.

Bodyglove normally runs 3 boats with multiple groups each day. They currently are only running one boat and carrying half the number of passengers.

We saw a pod dolphins on the way back. You can see the vog collecting on the hill side above Kailua-Kona.

We wish we had taken a boat to Kealakekua Bay where the Captain cook monument is located and snorkeling is better. Apparently, only a few boat operators have permits to go there.

The night manta ray swim was awesome. There are many daily boat tours that take snorkelers and divers to a location near Kona airport with lights located under the water. We took Neptune Charlies. The lights draw plankton which draws in schools of fish and manta rays. We were given powerful flash lights which drew the manta rays directly towards us floating up at the top of the ocean. Many people were terrified of the 1 ton, 24 foot span manta rays swimming very close with open mouths.

While in Kona we also snorkeled at our favorite Kahalu'u Beach and participated in the Kona UCC Coffee marathon by walking the 5K event up and down Ali'i drive.

The snorkeling wasn't as good as May, but we saw some turtles and they are always fun to see.

The Island Breeze Luau at King Kamehameha Beach Hotel was packed with 450 people.

The food was good and plentiful.

The dances were entertaining (tourist-ized polynesian dancing) and the hosts were very gracious.

The view was great of Kailua Bay and the growing vog.

The last dance was a fire dance. Quite impressive.

We were so happy to get back to quiet Hilo, without the large number of stressed tourists and the thick vog.

Previous June 2008 Hilo Log posts

Copyright 2008