After cruising all night we harbored in Hilo on the east side of the big island, Hawaii, namesake of the archipelago. The big island is known for volcanoes and black sand beaches. Our focus today was on Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. There are three volcanoes with recent activity: Mauna Loa at 13,677 feet, Mauna Kea at 13,796 feet, and Kilauea at 4,000 feet. Mauna Loa, measured from its ocean base, rises over 30,000 feet making it the tallest mountain in the world. Clouds shrouded the tops of both these volcanoes, making them invisible to us. Kilauea, where we spent most of the afternoon, is one of the world’s most active volcanoes; the current eruption began in 1983, and no end is in sight. While there are eruptions that explode upward, current lava flow is via lava tubes to the ocean.
The ferns are incredible on this rain forest side of the island, with some reaching over 20 feet high. 
After touring the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, we stopped at the Big Island Candy Company, famous for their chocolate covered, macadamia shortbread cookies, although they had all kids of cookies and candies. After being on a cruise ship for several days, who could or even would think of buying food?
For some reason, I was really tired and stayed in after dinner, while Kay spent some time in the hot tub, and witnessed lava flowing into the ocean on the south end of the island.
Kay’s Take: Our tour guide was Nikki with NCL’s Polynesian Tour Bus group. She was incredibly talkative and was very prepared to share her knowledge of Hawaiian history and culture of the Hilo area. She told us about the tsunamis that had hit the island and showed pictures of the before and after events. She shared personal stories of various lava flow events also. Hawaiians seem to have a great ’love/awe/respect’ for the volcano system because it helped create their islands and continues to do so today. After seeing a ‘river’ of hardened, blackened lava, it is hard to imagine until you see that Mother Nature can create a rain forest over the lava flow eventually. The lava tube that we walked through in a ‘jungle like setting’ was an old lava field; and the tube itself was large than many caves/tunnels that we have driven through in our car. Our guide said scientists have discovered two lava tube going from the big island out underneath the ocean – one is 24 miles long and the other is 32 miles long.
I went out to the Lanai deck hot tub around 8:30. It is the warmest tub on the ship. I met and visited with a young couple from Ontario there. They had come out to see the night passage around the southern tip of the island, hoping to see the lava flow. They didn’t realize that it wouldn’t be occurring until around 9:30. They went back and got dressed and returned to the railing beside me to wait for the sighting. The cruise ship turned off the deck lights on 12 and 6 (we were on 12) and allowed us a good view of the lava flow. I told Donald that the red ‘dots’ coming down the mountain reminded me of a night lit skiing trail in Alaska. When the lava hit the ocean at the tip of the island, the orange color got much larger and brighter and smoke, steam & vog (volcanic fog) burst upward making the sight even more beautiful and eerie. The wind was pretty fierce and rain began blowing fairly hard and I came in and crawled into bed to get warm. It was a pretty awe-inspiring sight ,in my opinion, but according to the crew not as impressive as it was last week. Some eruptions are more dynamic than others.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that we stopped eating in the ‘formal dining room’ in the evening. The food wasn’t that good and the wait staff was slow/overworked or something. We’ve been eating lunch and dinner in the Aloha main buffet dining room and the food has been much better. We’ve had great red snapper, huge shrimp cocktails, better deserts, lean prime rib, excellent Oriental and Indian cuisine, etc. We haven’t tried any of the specialty restaurants – seeing no need – food isn’t our primary focus.
Dunngone's Photos and Blog 