At the end of April 2018 we ventured back to Hawaii for two weeks.  This time we flew to San Diego and stayed overnight before heading to the Big Island.  Our daughter Honor joined us for part of the time we were there.

While on the Big Island we visited a number of places.  Paul and Honor took and ATV ride around the rim of the Pu’u O Umi Nature area.  This was a sacred place to the native Hawaiians.  Their royalty would live in this area.  It is still cut off from civilization.  People live there with no modern conveniences, trying to live like their forefathers lived.  Here are some pictures from that trip:

We headed up to the north end of the island.  Here is a picture of the statue of King Kamehameha I.  Also a flower and the coast line.

While we were their the Kilauea volcano erupted.  On Friday we felt an earthquake while around the pool where we were staying and the Hawaii Volcanoes park was closed due to the damage to roads from the earthquake.  However, by Sunday we were able to drive up to the volcano and spend two nights at the Kilauea Military Camp.  We were in no danger from the lava as it was flowing several miles from the camp.  Here is maybe one of the last pictures of the caldera at the top of Klauea.  We understand now it is no longer filled with lava.  You can also see the crater from a distance.  We wanted to drive down the “Ring of Craters” road but it was closed do to the earthquake.  We did drive a mile or so down the road before it was closed.  We did get to see some of the craters and lava from earlier eruptions.  You can see that flowers still manage to grow out of the lava.

Paul did get to do some SCUBA diving off of Kona.  This video was taken as he was descending for the second dive of the day.  At the beginning of the clip if you closely you will see a large silver fish not too far off.  It is a Tiger Shark that was prowling around the area.  We were told to expect it and that the Tiger Shark’s have no interest in divers.  Obviously Paul survived to put the truth to that statement.