The Hilo-Hamakua Heritage Coastline Drive makes for an hour stretch along the northeastern coastline of the island. This is the wet side of the island. Here the coastline road is found to be in a squeeze between the shoreline and sudden, forbidding rise of ancient volcanos. You have already seen the summit of Mauna Kea in a previous post.

The Big Island's climate changes with travel instead of with seasons. This is a factor of location and altitude. The sudden shift in humidity can always be felt when traveling through (west to east) the mid-island town of Waimea. There is a wet side and a dry side of Waimea every day of the year. The difference is pronounced with six ft tall cactus growing on pastureland that creeps into the western fringe of the town limits. Driving through town, without change in altitude, you typically meet a bank of clouds with threatened rain or fog when approaching the town's center. .(Most of the time it feels like the mist that falls on the vegatables at your local grocery store.) You can count on it raining every day in east Waimea, sometimes most of the day. You can count on it NOT raining the great majority of days in west Waimea, sometimes most of the day. The distance from west to east over fairly level ground is about 5 miles. Yes, I know this doesn't make sense.

Once through Waimea, driving east, you begin descending to the Hilo-Hamakua Heritage Coastline Drive. Dropping to about 2,000 ft, you are typically below most of the weather. At 1,000 ft after passing Honoka'a the drive veers south toward Hilo, 45 miles away. Because of the significant rainfall along this coast, the drive will take you over a half a dozen major gulches carved in the lava rock and 50 minor ones.
The views in the photos below are from a couple of the coastline bridges along this stretch, each a serious engineering challenge. The most major gulches fall all the way to the ocean within sight of the roadway.

Needless to say these massive gulches are not to be found on the Kona side of the Island with its relative dryness. The pictures have been cropped making distances appear much shorter than they truly are.

Looking oceanward with a telephoto from a gulch bridge:


Looking upslope without cropping. Note the bear at the base of the falls. If you wonder how long it would take to reach those falls, forget it. You would need to rappel down 400 ft through trees and timber to the riverbed, then hike miles up the stream.


Closer view


Another falls from a different stream in the same gulch


Now that we are into the harvest, the grasses are suddenly going to seed. Some of these shoots can stand 12 feet tall. For me it is easier to take in the beauty of these grasses than the gulch views.


I have the pleasure of commuting to Hilo along this stretch. As I drive into Hilo at 7AM, skirting Hilo Bay, if the surf is up the fortunate are out there on their boards. What a life.

The Volcanic Trail left by the Hawaiian Hotspot is not exactly a place anyone wants to visit. Over time that hotspot has thrown up lava creating the Hawaiian Island chain and more so the Hawaiian Ridge-Emperor Seamounts chain. This particular chain of seamounts extends some 18,000 miles from the " Big Island" of Hawaii to the Aleutian Trench off Alaska. Thus, the Hawaiian Islands themselves are a very small part of the chain and are the youngest islands in the enormous, mostly submarine mountain chain composed of more than 80 volcanoes.

You see, the entire length of the seamount chain was created by a single hotspot which presently sits……you guessed it…..right under the Big Island. The length of the Hawaiian Ridge segment alone, from the Big Island northwest to Midway Island, is about equal to the distance from Washington, D.C. to Denver, Colorado (2,600 km).

The amount of lava erupted to form the Hawaiian-Emperor chain is calculated to be at least 750,000 cubic kilometers. This is more than enough to blanket the entire State of California with a layer of lava roughly 4,500 feet thick (nearly a mile deep) ….not that Gecko has any particular disdain for California that he would bury her.

As the Pacific Plate continues to move west-northwest, the Big Island of Hawaii will be carried beyond the hotspot by plate motion, setting the stage for the formation of a new volcanic island in its place. Fact is, this process is under way with the upwardly mobile Loihi Seamount. Loihi is an active submarine volcano, forming about 19 miles off the southern coast of Hawaii when close to 300 million tons of rocks were displaced when the volcano burst to life only 8 years ago.


Loihi already has risen over 9,000 ft. above the ocean floor to within 3,300 ft of the ocean surface and will become the next island in the Hawaiian chain. Scientists from the University of Hawaii in finding Loihi, confirmed the first active volcano from a seamount.

Lōihi is being studied by manned submersible dives to its surface and placement of recording instruments and remote observatories on the summit. The volcano is actively venting hydrothermal fluids. Thermal vents there are being studied for thermophilic extremophiles, microbial and other organisms associated with extreme temperature conditions. In 1999, a never before seen jelly-like organism surrounding the 160C vents was collected for incubation and study at NSF's Marine Bioproducts Engineering Center. Prior to Lōihi, thermophilic extremophiles have never been known to exist in temperatures greater than 80°C.

So, the Big Island’s true hotspot has divers and some critters who are permanent residents, as well.

In the geologic future, Loihi may eventually become fused with the Island of Hawaii, which itself is composed of five volcanoes clustered together-Kohala, Mauna Kea, Hualalai, Mauna Loa, and Kilauea.

As with the pads on the feet of Geckos (see earlier post), these Loihi thermophilic extremophiles have a space science connection: Astronauts retrieved parts from the lunar probe Surveyor for analysis. A common bacteria, Streptococcus mitis, was unintentionally present inside the spacecraft's camera at launch. Around 50 to 100 of these bacteria survived dormant in this harsh environment for three years, to be detected when Apollo 12 brought the camera back to Earth. Many bacteria have dormant forms - such as spores - which can survive in harsh environments. It has been postulated that the possibility that spores and/or intact organisms may be spread around solar systems and the universe as a whole, permitting life to colonize suitable planets. Most astrobiologists acknowledge this hypothesis as an intriguing if farfetched possibility, but there is no evidence that unequivocally indicates that it accurately reflects natural history

Nevertheless, in the pic below, we have some durable organisms ........ about 14 miles out in the distance ......... and about 1,100 ft down. And a new Island rising.



Loihi Virtual Tour

And a closer look......


I work daily in Hilo. Hilo, the orchid capital of the world, recieves more rain annually than any other location in America. Orchids are truly flowers of superlatives. Even a complete layman in botany is awed by the beauty of orchids.

1. No plant family has as many different flowers as the orchid family (Orchidaceae).

2. The structural variations in the flowers appear endless. Different orchid flowers are built to encourage pollination by particular species of insects, bats, or birds.

3. Most African orchids are white; Asian orchids are much more often multicolored.

4. Some orchids only grow one flower on each stem, others sometimes more than a hundred together on a single spike.

5. The typical orchid flower is zygomorphic, i.e. bilaterally symmetric, where each half of the plant is a mirror image of the other. Although other plants are not typically zygomorphic, their leave are! Think of the bilateral symetric characteristics of the human body. The only notable plants with this characteristic are the peas and the orchids

6. The basic orchid flower is composed of three sepals in the outer whorl, and three petals in the inner whorl. The medial petal is usually modified and enlarged (then called the labellum or lip), forming a platform or seat for pollinators near the center of the corolla.

The Ironman ® Triathlon is a singular annual event held only on the Big Island of Hawaii. Thinking I was watching it a year ago in Lake Placid NY, I was very entertained. But it turns out that event was a qualifying race. Official qualifying events for the Hawaii Ironman ® take place annually around the world.

My wife and I watched the Ironman ® Triathlon Championships across the Island in Kona. It involves a 2.4 mile (3.86 kilometer) swim (across Kailua-Kona Bay), followed by a 112 mile (180.2 kilometer) bike ride (from Keauhou to Hawi and back), and a 26.2 mile (42.2 kilometer) marathon along the coast of the Big Island (from Keauhou to Keahole Point to Kailua-Kona). The Hawaiian ® Ironman is still regarded as the most honored and prestigious triathlon event to win worldwide.

The men below were 1/3 the way into the last marathon. The men you see here are professionals. Equally impressive were the women.

After driving the hour home, I kept track of the competitiion through http://www.ironmanlive.com/ IRONMANLIVE





Note the woman cheering her guy with Pom Poms.